Why Everyone Hates the Record Companies

Nothing delights me more than watching the cocksucker music industry wonder why their business model has been disintegrating under their fucking feet for well over a decade now. It's something I spent my entire life hoping would happen, but was never optimistic enough to think that it would. I rarely get what I want and there's almost nothing I've wanted more than this.

If you want to know why the major labels are such a loathsome construct, look no further than this article on The New Yorker's website. Looked at properly, it tells you everything you need to know. I actually find it remarkable that Bill Wyman (no, not that Bill Wyman) didn't come to the same conclusions that I did.

Michael Jackson's Thriller is famous for a lot of things, but it's famous most of all for being the biggest selling album in the history of ever. But they can't seem to determine with any accuracy just how many copies it's sold. As Wyman and Guillaume Vieira have determined, Thriller has sold 66.2 million copies, but every one else puts the figure at about 100 million, a number I'm not aware of Sony Music ever having discouraged.

In fairness, it's entirely likely that Sony doesn't even know how many units its moved. There was nothing that even resembled accurate accounting until the advent of Soundscan in 1991. Can you think of another industry that waited over 70 years to figure out how its product was selling? I can't.

My point is that if Sony can't be bothered to track sales with any degree of accuracy, it stands to reason that Michael Jackson himself (and now his estate) was never properly paid for his work. And Jackson was something of a big deal, with no shortage of accountants and lawyers at his disposal. If the industry felt that they could fuck him with impunity, can you imagine what they regularly do to everybody else?

But don't think for a second that the major labels are content to fuck over their artists. Ho, ho, don't be silly. They'll you rape you, the consumer, just as hard and dryly as humanly possible, too! We are the tortoise to their scorpion, and this is just what they do.

Since the industry long ago gave up even the pretense of signing something new or original, the sales for new artists are pathetic. But they still have something to sell you - the stuff you already bought months, years or even decades ago.

They have the rights to your favorite musician's catalogue, which they've recently started exploiting as ferociously as they humanly can. You see, they don't just own the masters from the albums you bought way back when, they own all the rehearsals, alternate takes and unreleased material, too. If your avorite musician recorded it, the label owns it. They can remix and remaster that shit endlessly, secure in the knowledge that you'll buy the same thing again and again, mostly because you're stupid.

The record companies stopped being about music almost twenty years ago and devoted themselves almost exclusively to marketing, which is what makes this document so fascinating.

The twentieth anniversary of Nirvana's final studio album, In Utero,  is this coming September and Interscope would very much like you to buy it again. You see, this is only the beginning of January and the market seeding has already started in full force.

Collapse Board doesn't say where this memo comes from, but everything about it reads like it could have only come from Interscope's marketing department. It's so sleazy and selective with the facts that I can't imagine that the Estate of Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic or Dave Grohl had anything to do with it, and Courtney Love couldn't pull it off without dozens of spelling and grammatical errors.

Let's review it together, shall we?

This memo is being sent out to prepare everyone for the major musical event of 2013. I am speaking, of course, about the 20th anniversary reissue of In Utero by Nirvana. Our friends at Pitchfork will produce a news item around May letting people know that the reissue is coming. Details will be scant, but it will nevertheless grease the wheels and allow a suitable amount of excitement to build up before the actual reissue. When the reviews start to appear it is vital that they all hold to a similar pattern. To understand why this is the case we must look once more to The Beatles. The sheer amount of Beatles literature (and its continued market success) should tell us all one very important fact: people not only like to read the same story over and over again, they demand it. Our job is to retell the story, to reinforce the legends, to emphasise the inflexibility of the narrative. So, given these facts I’ve prepared some bulletin points that focus on what each review should highlight:

Loosely translated, what they're saying is: "Lookee, we haven't signed anything worthwhile since Poor Dead Kurt iced himself, so we're going to re-sell his remains as thoroughly as we can. Of course, even pituitary retards, small children and household pets are too savvy to trust us at this point, so we'll market it through bloggers, who are dumb enough to do our unholy bidding for next to nothing. The Beatles re-sell their shit over and over, so why can't Nirvana? Our customers are desperate and dumb, so they'll take whatever we throw at them. Sure, most of them will steal it on BitTorrent, but there are easily 300,000 completest geeks out there who will pay a premium for the shitty new packaging that we'll wrap around the music they bought in 1993."

1. Give some brief background details. This is called SETTING THE SCENE. The Nirvana/Kurt Cobain legend must reinforce again and again the idea of the reluctant star, the uncomfortable voice of a generation. I recommend the use of the term “thrust into the limelight”. It functions beautifully for our purposes. I can’t stress enough that if the tragedy of the story is to emerge it can only do so from the idea of the reluctant star. Nevermind made them famous. What would they do now? (If you must mention Incesticide, be sure to call it a “stopgap” release.)

"Yes, let's SET THE SCENE in exactly the way that Cobain was most uncomfortable with when he was alive. He hated the 'voice of a generation' nonsense as thoroughly as Bob Dylan did. It's too bad that Dylan's still alive because Sony-Columbia could make even more money calling Bob that. Let's also pretend that guys join bands to remain anonymous, otherwise our 'thrust into the limelight' narrative looks completely fucking idiotic. We'll also pretend that Geffen didn't buy the Incesticide tracks from Sub Pop as a means of further monetizing the tidal wave that was Nevermindso shortly after its release, while giving Cobain time to write In Utero.

2. In Utero must be viewed as their attempt to regain punk credibility. Nirvana are on a major label, but you should present Cobain as a punk rocker at heart. Further tragedy can be wrung from the idea of the compromise that Nirvana made when they opted to sweeten two of the Steve Albini-produced tracks and make them more airplay friendly. (Please note: the original Albini-produced album will be available with the reissue. We have several bloggers working on reviews that seek to dismiss the original release and describe the original Albini mix as a ‘revelation’. This should bring the Nevermind haters on board).

"We'd really like you to be diligent about not pointing out that DGC despised the "punk rocker at heart" aspect of Cobain to the point that we initially refused to release In Utero at all. We wanted another "Smells Like Teen Spirit" so bad that we would've sold our grandmas into white slavery to get it. And boy, were we pissed when the dead junkie didn't give it to us! Let's also try to ignore that the "tragic compromise" of the remixes was forced on the band by, uh, us. Okay? We had never heard of Steve Albini before Nirvana hired him, so we knew that we'd hate him. Thankfully, Albini's precious 'indie credibility' dictated that he work for a flat fee instead of a percentage of royalties, which means we can endlessly repackage his work without paying him, twenty years after we threatened to not release it at all. #Winning! (Please note: Only two of the tracks on In Utero, "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" were remixed by R.E.M's fantastic producer, Scott Litt. Let's not emphasize the fact that we're essentially putting the same CD in one package twice, okay? The fans are shitheads, but let's not rub our wanton robbery in their faces.)"

3.The reissue itself. The best way to get people to buy an album twice is to say it has been remastered. This usually amounts to making it louder, but this is where reviews can be crucial. The reviewer must create an unscratchable itch in the reader that makes them view the original release as an inferior product. Phrases like “went back to the original master tapes” and “working with the band” help, but it must be more than that. Use other phrases like “Cobain’s aching howl sounds even more revelatory” (be careful not to overuse revelation/revelatory), and indicate that the remastering job “breathes new life” into the album. Don’t insinuate that the mix has changed, more that it has been enhanced so that you hear everything with new ears.

"You know as well as we do that we're fucking robbing both the grave and the audience here but we've learned to lie in ways that makes it seem that we aren't. By the way, the modern compressors that make everything sound like shit sure are a good way of tricking stupid people into giving us more money for something they already own and sounds pretty okay. Try to avoid mentioning that the only thing we did with the original masters was feed them into a computer and boosted the levels indiscriminately, which we could've just as easily done with a digital copy."

4.The bonus tracks. The original Albini mix will be a huge draw. Ultimately this will be the thing that convinces the doubters to part with their money. When dealing with the original Albini mix, explore the idea of compromise versus Cobain’s “original vision”, and don’t miss the opportunity to bring tragedy to the surface once again.

"With the 'bonus tracks,' imply that there's more there than "I Hate Myself and Want to Die," which Cobain himself made the decision to leave off of In Utero and was later released on The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience and the With the Lights Out box set. But if we're going to exploit a sad man's suicide to trick people out of their hard-earned money in a shitty economy, I can't think of a better way to do it that putting out a song called "I Hate Myself and Want to Die," can you?"

5. Summing up. Two things are essential when summing up In Utero: It must be touted as the best Nirvana album. A phrase like “though Nevermind was their breakthrough, In Utero is undoubtedly their best” should work fine. You might want to say “may well be their best”. We’ve already sold them Nevermind by making it seem like a special moment in musical history, so let’s sell them In Utero by pointing out that it’s actually their best. This time, it’s all about the music. The second thing to emphasise is that In Utero must be seen as the last will and testament of a soul not long for this world. Stress how dark, disjointed, and angry the album is. Stress its compromised creation. Be sure to include a sentence along the lines of “just over six months after In Utero’s release Cobain would be dead by his own hand”. By all means, mention heroin and suicide attempts but make sure Cobain’s untimely death seems tragic yet inevitable.

"Try not to say that we here at Interscope hated In Utero without actually saying that we hated In Utero, it's producer, the mixes and, increasingly, the guy who wrote it. God, he was a pain in the ass. Punk rock geeks, especially those under 50, are pretty gullible, so if you're a poseur blogger cunt, they'll probably believe you when you say that In Utero is a better collection of songs than Nevermind. Definitely don't ask anyone if they can hum "Milk It" or "tourette's" or remember anything at all about those songs. Also, suicide!"

Kurt Cobain: Reluctant star. Pressure. Compromise. Depression. Heroin. Death. It’s that simple. Don’t feel like you are selling yourself short by sticking to these guidelines. Instead know that you are performing a public service. You are providing comfort and certitude in a world of confusion. You are giving people something to believe in. You are helping to make the art of Kurt Cobain immortal. Expect more high profile media events along the lines of the Nirvana/McCartney collaboration before long and, with any luck, we can anticipate a lucrative last quarter in 2013. One last thing: is 2014 too early for a 15th anniversary of the first White Stripes album, or should we wait for the 20th anniversary? I look forward to your feedback. Let’s make the myths.

"Kurt Cobain: Talented guy who got in over his head. Mentally ill. Junkie. Suicide. Cash cow that we own forever. Don't actually say any of that, even though it's true. It makes us look heartless and god knows the music industry has enough image problems. You are telling half-truths and outright lies so that we can exploit a dead 27 year old for a shit-ton of money, very little of which we'll be sharing with you blogger ghouls. We will beat this drum into the fucking ground all year until people buy the In Utero re-release just to shut us the fuck up. It's too bad that we can't mention the Foo Fighters, but they're signed to RCA and we're afraid of getting sued. Why doesn't Intercope own RCA yet? I know that I haven't mentioned anything crazy, like new music or artists in this wildly deceitful memo but ... White Stripes! We own their masters too, and Jack Black can't do a fucking thing about it! Now let's go out there and lie, people! Daddy needs a new Escalade!"

There. You now know everything you ever needed to about the music industry! Congratulations!


Special thanks to Collapse Board, Buddyhead and Spin for publishing this excrement and bringing it to my attention. 

"I've Got a New Complaint": Strange Devolpments in the World of Song

It may not be right that that I celebrate the death of the music industry daily, but it's not exactly wrong, either.

Don't get me wrong, I feel badly for the few artists that are any good, but the ghoulish pricks on the business side have been ripping everybody off for generations now - including the artists - and deserve every molecule of suffering that they're enduring today. There are few things in life that convince me that things like justice aren't just old wives tales, but this is one of them.

Because it's such an important part of an industry that I've despised for years, I have a complicated relationship with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In large part this is because I distrust anyone that use the "and" instead of the more fitting "n'" in the phrase "rock n' roll." This is a rebellious music created by semi-literate musicians, and that spirit is to be respected. Anyone who thinks that they're clever is probably in Rush, and that's something that should be avoided at all costs.

The Hall of Fame was also founded and is currently run by the establishment, and the proper spirit of the music (at least when it's any good at all) is to rail against establishments. In the good old days, when the record company insisted on the final single under their contract, the Rolling Stones delivered the unreleasable "Cocksucker Blues" and told Decca to go fuck themselves. Today artists show up at these circle jerks in black tie.

On the other hand, the friggin' Hall of Fame sometimes recognizes utter geniuses that don't move a lot of product. Whenever I find myself getting overly pissy, I remind myself that Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits are there, and Randy Newman is in the new class of inductees.

So, for that matter, is Public Enemy. Fight the Power, indeed!

I can't underscore how important PE is. When rap was little more than LL Cool J fluff, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys turned it into art. Before Ice Cube started thinking he was a latter-day Eddie Murphy, so did NWA.

The construction of Public Enemy leads to some interesting questions, though. There were only three guys that did anything in the group, but at any given time, there about thirty on stage. Are the S1W's being inducted, too? I'm not aware of another militia ever having been at the ceremony, so that would be pretty cool!

How about Professor Griff? Look, I get that every group is different. Some bands have a really bitchin' guitarist that plays a jerk-off thirty-five minute "tribute to the cosmos" solo, or a drummer who writes entire fucking albums about Ayn Rand. Others have a Minister of Information that gives anti-Semitic interviews to the Washington Times.

Some guys noodle around on a Les Paul and others solo about how "Jews are responsible for the majority of the wickedness in the world." Vive la différence! If the Hall has a sense of humor, they should get Mel Gibson to formally induct them. And I can't think of anything that will rattle more cages than an acceptance speech that includes the etymology of the word "jewelry," how about you?


But Public Enemy's heyday was before Kurt Cobain killed himself, when music didn't suck so horribly.

Tonight things promise to get even worse.

As I've said many times, Nirvana was the last truly important band and Nevermind may be the most important album of all. After Sgt. Pepper, the Dave Clark Five still had a job. They just sold fewer records and played smaller rooms. But have you heard from Winger since 1991? How about Warrant? Nevermind was the meteor that destroyed the dinosaurs forever. Yes, you might find some of the bones on the amphitheatre circuit, but they hardly threaten to eat you alive.

At the 12-12-12 concert for Hurricane Sandy relief, the guys who aren't Cobain are going to ruin that legacy in the humiliatingly comic way ever.

SIR Paul McCartney will front a Nirvana reunion tonight — replacing late singer Kurt Cobain.

The sensational gig will see the surviving members of the grunge band together for the first time in 20 years.

And former Beatle Sir Paul will sing with them as they play a new song at a star-filled charity concert in New York.

Oh God, please. This is either going to be the funniest thing I've ever seen or a deep embarrassment for everyone involved, especially me.

The longer Paul McCartney lives, the more convinced I am that the conspiracy theory was true. McCartney actually was killed in a car accident in 1966. What has only recently become evident is that the Beatles replaced him with Paul McCartney's mom.

Not only does that explain what appears to be a complete absence of testosterone in McCartney, it also explains almost everything he's done since Revolver.

So there you have it. Paul McCartney's mom is joining Nirvana. Live! Tonight! Sold Out!

This I have to see, if only because I've never witnessed an abortion performed right in front of me before.

Maybe it's just me, but it would have been better if the guys who aren't Cobain got Professor Griff instead.



If you want to watch the show, or just give a few bucks, details are here.

Death Grips is Amusing, Maybe Very Clever

Some of you might be mystified by the record business, although I don't know why since it hardly exists at this point. But you might think that it's glamorous. You might be thinking, "Why? As 99% of the garbage out there proves, I don't even need talent. I can auto-tune my way to shitting huge chunks of gold every morning, which I can trade for sports cars , underage groupies and cocaine!"

If you believe this, you're wrong for two reasons.

First, record companies are among the most evil constructs in human history. Unless you're the luckiest of the lucky, the major labels will fuck you in the ass until you bleed from your eyes. Want to be in debt for the rest of your life? Being on a label gives you pretty good odds of pulling it off.

The industry has one of the most unique business models that I've ever heard. Let's say some A&;R hack hears you in some karaoke bar in Phoenix and "loves your sound, man!" You sign a deal with him and receive the "big advance" that Springsteen sang about in "Rosalita." That's great news, ain't it?

Not exactly. See, an "advance" is just that. It's a loan. The term is "advance against royalties," which means the label collects that back before they pay you a dime from your record sales. And to make a record in the first place, you need to go to a big time studio, mostly because the label insists on it. That'll cost you anywhere between a hundred and fifty thousand and half a million dollars, which you also pay back from your royalties. The there's promotion, distribution and tour support, all of which will come out of your pocket. The legendary Steve Albini describes the situation  far better than I ever could. At the end of the day, you're fucked. And that's if you have a moderate hit! This is what happens to artists who make a profit for the label!

Let's say that you're the 1% of the 1% that gets really big! Looka you, you're Taylor Swift or Green Day! Congratulations! But the the label owns your master tapes (which is an art fag term for your record) in perpetuity, even though you busted your balls paying those bastards their advances back and got around accounting that makes even the government's look good. Look at this way, the label is a bank and your album is a house. The analogy falls apart when you learn that the bank still owns your house after you pay your mortgage, though.

If somebody approaches you and says, "I'm from Sony Records and we really love you," you should drive a stake through his fucking heart before he drives one through yours.

The second reason you're wrong is that, because if you're an artist, the overwhelming likelihood is that you're a moron. You really think that you're going to be Taylor Swift or Green Day in a market that's going to shit faster than can properly measured.

That being the case, you'll sign pretty much anything that the soulless and congenitally evil record company puts in front of you. You won't just sign away your publishing (which is where musicians make the real money,) you'll also give away your merchandising, which is another huge cash cow. Always remember that you're a fucking moron with auto-tune software. If the Beatles signed monstrously shitty deals, you will, too. God knows, you're probably stupid enough that you'll hire a lawyer that the label recommends to you without wondering why the label would recommend a lawyer to you.

In the interim, you probably bought Moms a huge house that neither of you can afford and blew the rest of your advance on cocaine and underage groupies. I'd do that and I actually know better. You don't.

Congratulations, shithead! You're no longer singing karaoke in Phoenix, but you're in the worst possible place in life: You're famous and broke! Yes, you're MC Hammer.

That's why I generally applaud anything that fucks over the music industry, including illegally downloading their shitty product. They want you to believe that you're ripping off the artist, but you're really ripping off the labels before they get a chance to. Fuck them.

And that's why I became interested in the strange and savage saga of Death Grips this week. Death Grips makes something called "noise rap" that I can only imagine is terrible, although I'm downloading some of it as I write this. But they did something unimaginably cool, which is why I'm writing something this long about it.

You see, Death Grips was recently signed to Epic records (which is owned by Sony and made Michael Jackson the galactic superstar that he was before he went insane and destroyed himself.) They were recording their sophomore major label release, No Love Deep Web, when they had a brilliant idea.

They decided to leak No Love Deep Web themselves on the internet. For free. With highly NSFW cover art (trust me before you click the link. I warned you. Okay, it's a huge, hard cock with the title written on it with a Sharpie. Please don't go there. ) In a statement they said that we'd hear the album for the first time at the same time that Epic did. Epic, of course, went batshit fucking crazy. One of their VP swine sent this tersely-worded e-mail to the band's manager;

Peter —

As you are aware from our several conversations today, Epic is extremely upset and disappointed that the artist decided to release an album without Epic's knowledge or involvement. As you know, the artist has not only blatantly breached a number of provisions in the applicable recording agreement, it has also willfully infringed Epic's copyright rights with respect to these masters. Equally important, without provocation, the artist has made false and disparaging statements on various websites about Epic. All this, despite the fact that Epic has done nothing except wholeheartedly support the band, even though the band has made certain decisions that have financially damaged Epic.

Given the situation in which Epic finds itself, please immediately pull the album from all websites on which it is currently being distributed. In addition, please promptly provide the masters (which Epic owns) to us. Once we have cleared the tracks, we intend to quickly put the album up for sale.

This album will not count towards the Recording Commitment. As I am sure you understand, Epic will not pay for an album that thousands of people have already downloaded. Any royalties on sales will be accounted and paid pursuant to the terms of the recording agreement.

Please confirm that you will comply with what is set forth in this e-mail, and that we are in agreement on how the parties will move forward with respect to this album.

Epic reserves all of its rights and remedies.

Heath

Of course, Epic dropped Death Grips yesterday.

Now you might think that this was a really dumb thing for Death Grips to do, right? But remember, you're an idiot. You think that you're going to Taylor Swift or Green Day.

For years, I've been hearing that the Internet was going to make musicians rich and famous. And it actually has a pretty good track record doing that ... for musicians that are already rich and famous. If you're Radiohead, Prince or the Nine Inch Nails guy, the Internet is a boon to your bottom line.

When you're in that position, you don't need to sell many records to get rich. The biggest acts on the world only get a 25% royalty on the wholesale cost of each album they sell. But if they self-release on the Internet, they get over 80% of retail after production costs. Let's say that you need to sell 2 million units to make decent money off of a major label album. If you self-release, absent manufacturing and distribution, you can start doing that at around 100,000 units. Pretty sweet!

The problem with that business model is that it only works if you're already famous. If you're not, you're just another asshole in the basement competing with every other asshole with an auto-tune program that thinks that they're going to be Taylor Swift or Green Day, too. The Internet really doesn't have much of a marketing department.

In a roundabout way, this brings me to the story of the Sex Pistols. The Pistols became famous before they released a full-length album because their antics got them dropped by EMI. Never Mind the Bollocks ... Here's the Sex Pistols went on to become a legendary album after it was released by Virgin. The Sex Pistols subsequently became very famous and, if the band is to be believed, stayed broke.

But imagine what they could have made if there was no Virgin Records to release it on after they were shit-canned by EMI, but there was an Internet. Messers Rotten, Jones, Cook and Matlock wouldn't be living in shitty apartments today.

Long story short, Death Grips signed to a label that paid to make their record. Then they got themselves dropped in a way that made them reasonably well-known in the process. And now they're free to self-release, unencumbered by the record company horseshit that turns everyone that has ever touched a guitar into a junkie asshole.

This might be the smartest thing I've ever seen musicians do.

Workin' on a Dream: On Celebrity Endorsements and the Idiots Who Give a Shit About Them

You know what? I was actually thrilled when Republicans took the position that celebrities should, in the words of idiot talk-show host Laura Ingrham, "Shut Up and Sing." As a matter of fact, I wouldn't have had too much of a problem with Republicans trying to commercially stomp to death people like Bill Maher and the goddamned Dixie Chicks if I didn't instinctively feel that they were insanely, cuntishly hypocritical.

All too often, the very same people who wanted the Dixie Chicks tried for treason just because they made an entirely reasonable remark on stage in London turned out to be the same shitheads who rushed to the defence of a has-been like Ted Nugent when he suggested that guns be put in the mouths of Democratic presidential candidate. It's also hard to forget that Andrew Breitbart became a celebrity for the sole purpose of telling other celebrities to shut the fuck up, while painting himself as "free speech warrior."

That hypocrisy was put in stark relief when Republican bloggers and Fox News shitheads were actually assaulting one another over who would give Clint Eastwood the sloppiest blowjob following his delusional incantation at this summer's Republican Convention.

Then there's the strange and sad case of Stacey Dash. In all honesty, I didn't even know what her name was until week when she endorsed Mitt Romney for president. I always just thought of her as "that super-fucking hot Black chick from Clueless." And I've never seen Clueless.

Now I know her name, but think of her as the super-fucking hot Black chick that was in Clueless and endorsed Mitt Romney. Oh, and I know that she's the new GOP blogger super-hero of the moment.

Do her political views make me want to see her movies any more or less? No, but only because I don't think I've seen a movie that she's been in in the first fucking place. As a matter of fact, I might want to eat her ass more than I used to because I at least know what her name is now, and I've usually (but not always) found that a helpful seductive tool. And, she has a magnificent ass, especially for a 45-year-old woman. That fucking thing is gorgeous!

Do I think that she deserved the supposed racial animus (and I say "supposed" because I can't be bothered looking it up, just like every other blogger that has written about it) that she received from liberals as a consequence of her blog endorsement? Obviously, I don't. If anything, cries of "racism!" are something that I see as cheap stunts from both sides of the spectrum  because they have little else to say. Moreover, they minimize the impact of the real racism that still exists. It's called the Law of Diminishing Returns. Look it up.

As I've said repeatedly, Republicans didn't discover racism until they invented Michael Steele and sexism only occurred to them when Sarah Palin fell into their throbbing little laps, as evidenced by all of the Hillary Clinton jokes that circulated for sixteen years, a number of which were actually funny. All things being equal, I'm amazed that they haven't turned a black female Mormon like Mia Love into a secular saint already, although I fully expect them to. And that would be even funnier because a statistical majority of Republicans don't recognise Mormons as Christian. At least not until they win an election.

Having said that, I think that Republicans are showing both their hypocrisy and their desperation when they go out of their way to fit Ms. Dash for a friggin' cape. They so want some taste of glimmer that they'll embrace a woman that may as well as have been in the Witness Protection Program for the last 18 years to get it. If you think that Republicans haven't gotten into the "identity politics" game, you're kidding yourselves.

Everything you need to know about celebrities is that they aren't all that different from race horses. They get famous because they work on one facet of their lives to the exclusion of everything else. They might very well win the Kentucky Derby, but they're just as likely to kick your balls off when they aren't running to the finish line.Just look to Lindsay Lohan as one example.

Anyone who expects celebrities to talk about anything other than what they do for a living without drooling on themselves might as well be drooling themselves, too.

Mediate's Andrew Kirell falls into this trap with his "Open Letter to Bruce Springsteen."

Dear Mr. Springsteen:

You disappoint me.

This is not some right-wing rant against “Hollyweird” liberals and their penchant for supporting President Obama and the Democratic Party. Your recent re-endorsement of President Barack Obama doesn’t offend me on its own — everyone saw it coming. But what offends me is what you are abandoning by diving headfirst into the endorsement game.

Let me explain:

Do you remember the speech you gave on nearly all 100 tour dates of the 2008 Magic tour? Lord knows I remember it, having seen you three times that year. Before each performance of “Livin’ in the Future,” you gave a little political rant. It went something like this:

“Over the past six years we have, unfortunately, had to add to the American picture: rendition, illegal wiretapping, rolling back of civil liberties, no habeas corpus if you’d like to defend yourself against charges brought against you. These are things that not only attack our Constitution but attack who we are and our very selves.”

Remember that? The song itself, you explained, was about sleeping through all those awful Bush-era changes: “We’re livin’ in the future and none of this has happened yet,” said the catchy chorus.
Except now we are livin’ in the future… and all of this is happening still.

By and large, President Obama has continued the George W. Bush-era policies of rendition (see here), illegal wiretapping (see, um… the PATRIOT Act renewal?), rolling back of civil liberties (NDAA, executive overreach, etc.), and other unsavory things like, you know, drone strikes that evaporate innocent civilians via remote control.

Bush was awful. I was with you on that one. Even though I am turned off when my favorite musicians use their concerts as a gigantic soapbox, I appreciated that you were at least ranting on behalf of civil libertarian values.

But now, after spending six years being the most outspoken musical advocate against Bush-era civil liberties encroachments, you openly endorse a man who has willingly continued these exact “un-American” policies?

Either you are a political fraud or just blinded by the light of partisanship.
Both possibilities are truly disappointing.

Look, I get it. By no means am I saying you should have endorsed Mitt Romney. For all we know, he would be even worse than Obama on these issues — especially given that his foreign policy advisement team is made up of Bush’s favorite circle of neocons. Yikes
.
Maybe you truly hesitated before making this official endorsement. Maybe you deliberated for hours and weighed the options: “Should I fully endorse the man who has, thus far, governed the exact opposite of my professed values? Or do I give a tepid endorsement that reflects my hesitance here?

Or do I endorse a third party? Or maybe I stay out of this race entirely?”

But I doubt it.

Again, I understand that no one can realistically expect you to show up to these Iowa and Ohio rallies and say something like: “Yeah! Woo! After much hesitation and doubt, I’ve made the tough decision to — despite a multitude of disappointments — endorse this president for re-election because he is the lesser of two evils in my mind! Woo! Yeah! Four more years!”

I guess I just naively expect that someone who used their multi-million-dollar stage as a soapbox to rail against such governmental abuses would feel enough conviction about those issues to remain consistent and principled.

Perhaps you could have endorsed someone like Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson or even Green Party candidate Jill Stein — both of whom espouse the exact views you spent years touting on tour. Or maybe you could have abstained altogether in order to send a powerful message.
Instead you’re just another cheerleader for those in power… when the power is in the hands of your preferred political party.

I hope you reconsider.

Sincerely,

Andrew Kirell
PS – All will be forgiven if you would just release the “Electric Nebraska” tapes.

There are any number of reasons that this letter is complete nonsense.

First, Bruce Springsteen is a partisan Democrat. He always has been and there's no reason to believe that he'll change his affiliation this late in life. Like almost every partisan voter out there, Springsteen is not unlike a trained dog. He barks, heels and rolls over just like he was trained to. And if you're reading partisan political blogs all day, you shouldn't feel all that superior to The Boss.

Second, Springsteen - like most celebrities - has very little to do with his own life. The reason that Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" was such a big hit was because it reflects the way those people actually live. They "have accountants to pay for it all." Stars structure their lives in such a way that they don't have to do anything other perpetuate what made them famous in the first fucking place. That's why they're always so shocked when they go broke. and that's why the rest of us laugh our asses off when they do.

If you really expect these people to be serious political philosophers, then you're even dumber than they are. If nothing else, they have very valid reasons for being wholly ignorant. All they have to do is write songs, play guitar, pretend to be someone else for a few months a year, or have a bangin' ass on them. You're at least supposed to be living in the real world.

If you relate to people like Bruce Springsteen or Stacey Dash in any way, you should probably be committed. And sterilized. It isn't their job to be "consistent and principled."

Third, rendition began under Clinton, not Bush. Christ, Mr. Bill was actually proud of this. Anyone that doesn't get that probably shouldn't be advising anyone how to vote.

Fourth, Nebraska is pretty much perfect the way it is. Releasing the electric demos would suck and ruin a great album. Who in the fuck would want Bruce to do such a thing and still consider himself sane? And anyone who would suggest such a thing is less worthy of being listened to on matters political than even Springsteen himself.

The worst part is that I actually agree with Mr. Kirell. If you want to affect real change, liberals should vote for the Greens and anyone who believes in anything other than a Big Jesus Government should vote for the Libertarians. The Democrats aren't liberal in any substantive way and anyone who thinks that the Republicans are the party of small government just hasn't been paying attention.

In the end, I think we should all come together in admiration of just how nice Stacey Dash's naked nipple looks and stop giving a shit about what she thinks. I\m more than a little disappointed that she isn't completely shaved, like all the best women are.

Because Randy Newman is Better Than You are

Them Bones: The lonesome death of Layne Staley

There was no avoiding the fact that yesterday was the 18th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. It was pretty much everywhere you looked on Internet. And you know what? That's the way it oughta be.

Cobain was an incredibly important figure in music history. Nevermnd changed the industry in ways that even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band didn't. When Sgt. Pepper was released, groups like the Dave Clark Five were still allowed to exist, they just sold fewer records and played smaller rooms.

That wasn't true of what happened in the wake of Nirvana. The hair metal bands that dominated the world before Nevermind didn't just take a hit in the popularity, they almost immediately lost their record deals. Most of them (the obvious exception being Bon Jovi, which was always more akin to Bruce Springsteen with louder drums than hair metal) saw their careers  vaporized forthwith. You can't even find, say, Winger on the back of a milk carton anymore. When was the last time you listened to Skid Row without irony?

Of course this was back when the music business was even worth caring about, which it hasn't been in over a decade. It's almost as if the bullet that killed Kurt went through the wall behind him and took down anything even sort of exciting about music. Cobain's impact, whether you liked him or not, is something that should be remembered and honored.

Because record labels are populated by some of the least creative people on earth,  they went on a binge of signing pretty much anything from Seattle that even remotely resembled grunge. They too wanted to cash in on the popularity of Nevermind, and they would do so in any way that they could. Most of those acts - and most of them were acts - followed the hair farmers into obscurity.

I've already written the best thing that I probably ever will about Kurt Cobain, so I'm not going to focus on that anniversary today.

One of the groups that rose after the explosion of Nirvana was Alice in Chains, who actually turned out to be a pretty good band. Dirt was a pretty exceptional album for its time, and it stands up today. Unlike Cobain, who was always coy about being a junkie and never admitting the extent of his problem in public, Dirt was almost entirely about Layne Staley's addiction. On the other hand, he really liked heroin.

Unfortunately for Staley, journalists are the only people less creative that music executives, so following Dirt, all anyone wanted to talk to him about was smack. As Rick Perry would say, "Oops." Making a record about being a junkie defined him as a junkie for the rest of his life.

Alice in Chains did three proper records and two EPs in six years, which is a a pretty impressive output in an age where major labels demanded three years between albums. That being said, they couldn't tour very much. You'd be surprised how logistically difficult it can be to schlep a singer that can't stand up around the world. The scheduled tour in support of their 1996 self-titled album was cancelled just as it had begun.

Instead of touring, Alice in Chains did an episode of MTV Unplugged  and Layne Staley vanished for the rest of his life. For all intents and purposes, he wouldn't be seen in public after Unplugged. He did a few shows opening for KISS and that was it.To be fair, it must take a significant opiate intake to tolerate being around Gene Simmons for any length of time, let alone every day.

 

Shortly after Staley was taken off the road for good, his ex-fiance died of bacterial endocarditis, a secondary complication of her own heroin addiction, he seemed determined to follow her. He locked himself inside of his Seattle condo and proceeded to do just that.

However, it took longer than anyone expected, five and a half years. In that time, he managed to record about three songs. When the video was shot for his supergroup cover of "Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two" for The Faculty soundtrack, four year old live footage of Layne was used. No videos were shot for the two songs recorded for the Alice in Chains box set that year, nor were there any new pictures in it. By 1999 that cat was gone.

Some people, like Keith Richards, can live fairly-tale lives as junkies, touring the world, making a fortune and writing a great book about it when he was done. Other than the fact that it's illegal and the lifestyle isn't especially good for you, opiates are among the least physically destructive drugs you can take. Their effect on the body (if you know how pure your junk is, which criminalization makes impossible) are neutral, unlike cocaine, tobacco, alcohol, or even marijuana.

For Layne, the entire point of heroin seemed to be to get debilitated. And for those last five years, he stayed as debilitated as he possibly could. By the time he gave his last interview in early 2002, the 6'1" Staley weighed 86 pounds, his skin had no color, and his teeth were rapidly falling out. He readily admitted that he knew that he wasn't long for the world.

"I know I'm dying," he rasped through missing teeth. "I'm not doing well. Don't try to talk about this to my sister Liz. She will know it sooner or later."

Staley, suffering from fever and nausea, told Rubio that his need for heroin was all-consuming, even though the effects of the drug were no longer enjoyable. He added that smack had completely ravaged his system and left him empty and filled with regrets.

"This fucking drug use is like the insulin a diabetic needs to survive," he said. "I'm not using drugs to get high like many people think. I know I made a big mistake when I started using this shit. It's a very difficult thing to explain. My liver is not functioning and I'm throwing up all the time and shitting my pants. The pain is more than you can handle. It's the worst pain in the world. Dope sick hurts the entire body."

The most chilling passage of the interview reads like a suicide note.

"I know I'm near death," he said. "I did crack and heroin for years. I never wanted to end my life this way. I know I have no chance. It's too late. I never wanted [the public's] thumbs' up about this fucking drug use. Don't try to contact any AIC (Alice in Chains) members. They are not my friends."

The last person to see Layne Staley alive was former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, who was ironically fired by Staley during the Dirt tour for being too fucked up on drugs. Starr himself would be dead of a drug overdose in nine years. He never stopped blaming himself for Layne's death, not having called 911 upon seeing the condition his friend was in.

It took roughly fifteen days for Staley's body to be discovered on April 20, 2002. He had so isolated himself from the rest of the world that the only indication of a possible problem was his accountant noticing that he hadn't withdrawn any money in that period. He was found by police and his mother on his couch, surrounded by his drugs.

After a few days, the decomposition of human remains makes determining a precise time of death almost impossible. Staley had been dead for over two weeks, but the authorities believe that - based on his encounter with Starr and his lack of subsequent bank transactions - he had died sometime on April 5, 2002, eight years to the day after Kurt Cobain committed suicide.  He was 34 years old.

Cobain died a few months before the Rolling Stones started their 1994 Voodoo Lounge tour. Of course, the press couldn't stopping themselves from asking Keith Richards about it, who seemed genuinely exasperated by the question (skip to 9:03 in the linked video.) You might be too, if you suddenly found yourself the authority on dead junkie fuck-ups.

"Somebody should have been taking care of the man" Richards said. "You know, he was obviously a lunatic in the first place. You know, the guy tried to do himself in in Rome. Nobody was there, he bought a shotgun, boom. Hey, maybe he's better off. Who knows? He'd make a lousy plumber."

There are people out there who are determined to do themselves in. That's just a cold fucking  fact. Two of them had their death anniversaries yesterday, 18 and 10 years respectively.

While Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley would've made lousy plumbers, it doesn't make their deaths any less sad.

A Christmas Card From From Tom Waits

Tom Waits "Silent Night / Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis" from Austin City Limits on Vimeo.

Some Girls Live in Texas '78

In pretty much every sense of the word, the Rolling Stones were at a crossroads in 1978. After three grindingly mediocre albums (1973's Goats Head Soup, 1974's It's Only Rock n' Roll and 1976's Black and Blue, all of which admittedly had a few great songs on them, as even the worst Stones records tend to), they were widely derided by the emerging punk movement as bloated comic charactures of what masterpieces like Exile on Main St, railed against.

Worse, the punks weren't exactly wrong. The Rolling Stones had become complacent and decadent in the ugliest sense of the word. Largely because Keith Richards' increasing heroin addiction and the fact that the band now lived in different countries, the spent the period from 1972 to '78 coasting on their reputations.

It didn't help that their live shows kept adding musicians like Billy Preston, Ollie Brown and progressively larger horn sections. The Stones brought the Vegas "revue" pheonmoenon to rock that finally collapsed under its own weight on Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion tour, which seemed to have horns, keyboards, chick singers, a massuse, three dwarves and a charterd accountant on stage with Axl, Slash and Duff. And that nearly bankrupted GN'R, which is why that fucking tour seemed to go on forever, and ultimately destroyed the band.

Then there was Keef's misunderstand with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police over the 22 grams of heroin that they found on his person in Toronto's Habour Castle Hilton in March of 1977, which threatened the very existence of the Rolling Stones.

22 grams is a lot of smack to have on you at any given time, especially if you're only supposed to be in town for less than a week. The Mounties developed an interesting theory around this; that zillonaire rock star Keith Richards made music as a hobby, but his real passion was selling junk. They charged him with possession with intent to distribute, which carries a sentence of seven years to life in Canada.

In doing so, they overlooked  the fact that even the dumbest junkie musicians aren't that dumb. Even though they need to get high, they obviously can't afford to be caught with smack at a border crossing. So they get other people to do it for them. Because the potential for one source getting nabbed was so great, folks like Keef would have multiple supplies coming to him in a city. However, sometimes none of the sources would get nabbed, which is what basically happened at the Harbour Castle.

If the Rolling Stones were broken up by Canuck justice, they were threatened with irrelevence by groups like the Sex Pistols and the Clash. It was under these clouds that the Stones decamped for Paris to record what would become their "New York" album, Some Girls.

With the exception of the incomparable Sugar Blue on harmonica, "guest musicians" were almost completely absent from the Some Girls sessions.  It was the five Stones, along with regular keyboardists Ian Stewart and ex-Faces Ian McLagan, and that was pretty much it. Having said that, Sugar Blue is impossibly good, and should've joined the Stones full time. The harmonica he plays, especially on "Miss You" sounds almost nothing like a harmonica, which is a pretty rudimentary instrument. Sugar's parts are played live with a saxophone to this day.

The Stones always had a weird dynamic with guest musicians. Instead of the guests complimenting the band, the band tended to support the guests. If you listen to Black and Blue - with standout exceptions like "Hand of Fate" - it sounded more like a Billy Preston album of the era than a proper Stones album. And that's not necessarily bad. Billy Preston was fucking dynamite in the 70's. But it wasn't really the Rolling Stones. That's also true of "It's Only Rock n' Roll" with is structurally David Bowie meets the Faces, which makes sense since Bowie and Ron Wood wrote it with Mick Jagger. Keith Richards doesn't even play on the recorded version of the song.

Some Girls was destined to be the last great album of great "new" Rolling Stones songs (1981's Tattoo You was almost as good, but it was mostly a hodgpodge of outtakes from Goats Head Soup through 1980's Emotional Rescue sessions. Jagger finished and cleaned up Tattoo You pretty much on his own in the studio.) Unlike every subsequent record of new songs, there isn't a bad fucking tune on Some Girls. Sure, some of them are better than others, but none of them actually suck. The Stones hadn't done that since Exile on Main St., and they'd never do it again.

Last week, the Stones decided to cash in on Some Girls yet again. To understand this, you need to understand the peculiar business position the Rolling Stones are in. In 1971, they started their own record company, which would license their albums to a major distributor, but the Stones own the masters. That means if you sign the Rolling Stones, you don't just get the next three records that no one but me will buy. You get everything from Sticky Fingers onward, and the Stones catalogue still sells a fuck-ton of units in an era where no one is dumb enough to actually pay for music.That's why there have been at least three "remastered" editions of those records in the last 25 years.

Maybe later in the week I'll write about the reissue, which is way better than last years reissue of Exile. The hidden treasure this week is the brand-spanking-fucking new Some Girls Live in Texas '78 BluRay and DVD. Unlike last year's home video release of the 1974 movie of the '72 Exile tour, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones - which is well worth picking up - Some Girls Live in Texas has never before been seen by the public.

And Live in Texas, 78 is rocks the gawdamn casbah, teenagers. From 1989's Steel Wheels tours - which comprises most of the band's live concert home video releases (there have been five, six if you include Martin Scorcesse's feature film, Shine a Light) onward, there were almost as many people on stage as there were in the audience. Of them all, the only one that comes close is the Paris theatre show on the Four Flicks box set, and that's because so many rare and cool songs and covers  were on it) comes close. Because Jagger was so concerned with recreating the records on stage from '89 forward, he ressurected the "Stones Revue" idea of the '75 tour, but more bloated and without anyone as fucking hip as Billy Preston with them. Live in Texas '78 is just the five Stones, with Stewart and McLagan on keys.

More importantly, the Some Girls tour was the last time the Rolling Stones exclusively played arenas and theatres. Forever afterward, they played your local enormodome. While the Stones are better at it than almost anyone else, pretty much all rock music sucks in a sports stadium, especially outdoor stadiums. And domes are even worse. When a band plays outside, the music goes everywhere but your ears. And when there's there's a steel dome involved, it bounces all over the fucking place.

Worse still, when you play in a place for 30,000 to 120,000 assholes, you had goddamned well better play the 22 songs that everybody hears on the radio 13 times a day. And God help you if you play too many songs from your new record.

Some Girls Live in Texas, '78 doesn't do that. This show had seven (then) new songs - ('When The Whip Comes Down',   'Beast Of Burden',  'Miss You',  'Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)',  'Shattered' ,'Respectable' and 'Far Away Eyes')  in a row. The only band I know of that's done that lately with a new record was the Foo Fighters, and they only did it in clubs before Wasting Light was released. I'll grant you that the Stones haven't made an album with that many great new songs to play in a row subsequent to Some Girls - after all, no one's chanting for, say, a suite from Dirty Work or Undercover - but it's a ballsy move, nonetheless.

What stands out on Live in Texas is the paucity of the "Greatest Hits." Yes, "Honky Tonk Woman", "Tumbling Dice", "Happy", "Brown Sugar" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" are all here, and "Miss You" and "Beast of Burden" eould later become part of "The Big 22", but there's no "(I Can't No) Satisfaction", "Sympathy for the Devil" or "Street Fighting Man" to be found here. In fact only two orignial songs pre-date Exile on Main St., which would be unthinkable for the Stones to do now.

Instead you get two Chuck Berry covers - and you just can't go wrong with a Chuck Berry song - the brilliant "Star Star" from Goats Head Soup and the classic Robert Johnson blues "Love in Vain."

If you want a giant "hits" set, Some Girls Live in Texas, 78 likely isn't for you. Nor are you going to get all of the fucking fireworks, fire and confetti that the Stones have employed since '89. There isn't even a giant video screen behind the band. But if makes you feel better, Mick does spend a good deal of the show in a douchey red leather disco cap, a punk t-shirt with an obscured swaatika, and really odd pants and shoes. That's about all the spectacle you're going to get.

But if you want to see a fantastic band fighting for their fucking lives, then you have to buy Some Girls Live in Texas, 78.



Editor's note: The audio on the actual Live in Texas Bluray/DVD/BitTorrent is much, much louder than it is on the YouTube clip above.

The way she wanted it: Amy Winehouse, 14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011

I've been saying pretty regularly for years now that I hate music, and have since Kurt Cobain killed himself in 1994. More specifically, I hate what the music industry has done to music, which is essentially kill it. In the last twenty years, there's been about as much joy in music as there is in a Big Mac, which is plenty if you're morbidly obese and satisfied with whatever some inhuman conglomerate is willing to feed you.

Back in the '50s and 60's, there were hundreds of small labels that would discover and develop incredible artists whose work will outlive all of us. By the time Nirvana was signed there were six. Now there are basically two, both of whom are owned by multinational corporations whose primary business isn't music.

The guys who sell you music - which is supposed to feed your fucking soul - would be just as happy selling shoes or cheeseburgers. And you know what? The music reflects that. The days of a Ahmet Ertegun or Jerry Wexler bringing you Ray Charles are well and truly over. There isn't going to be a next Sam Philips. Ever. And that means that there's never going to be an Elvis or Roy Orbison or Johnny Cash, ever again. You'll get whatever some goddamn aspiring hedge fund manager gives you and he'll expect you to fucking well thank him for it.

But accidents do sometimes happen, which is where Amy Winehouse enters our little narrative. She was possessed of a fantastic voice, an uncanny sense of music history and the good sense to market something that should be unsellable in these most dastardly of modern musical times.

That made her brilliant, and it tells me that if some corporate A&R hack wasn't asleep at the switch or drunk to the point of derangement, she never should've been signed in the first place. If her signing was intentional, it was because the hacks figured that they had the next Celine Dion or Whitney Houston - girls who sell zillions of records to people who don't buy that many records.

Yet something incredible happened. Amy Winehouse was allowed to make records that Amy Winehouse wanted to make. And her sensibility made them unreally good records. I paid attention to Frank and Back to Black, which is a pretty impressive achievement, given my general disgust with anything with a beat these days. Amy was the industry's happiest accident in at least two decades. But make no mistake, it was an accident.

The only complicating factor is that she didn't enjoy living very much. I never got a sense that she felt the joy from her unmistakable gifts that everybody else did. It's been pretty clear for three years now that there would never be a fantastic follow up to Back to Black, if there was going to be a follow-up at all. Who knows that she even could recreate that magic? Micheal Jackson spent thirty years trying and couldn't pull it off.

After her disastrous gig in Belgrade last month, I listened to Kevin Smith spend nearly an hour on a podcast go on about how she never should've been allowed on stage. I think that he missed the point. If her people wouldn't put her out there, there's every reason that she'd fire them and find someone that would. The funny thing about delusionally suicidal addicts is that they're delusionally suicidal addicts and not all that prone to reason.

And no, drugs aren't likely what killed Amy Winehouse today. From what I understand, she was rather fond of opiates, which in and of themselves, aren't especially bad for you. The lifestyle doesn't do you any favors, and the illegality of it causes all manner of overdoses and toxic poisoning, but the drug itself is among the most physiologically harmless that you can take. Heroin, in controlled settings, is much better for you than cocaine, alcohol or tobacco could ever be.

This was a girl that lusted after her own demise. There's absolutely no indication that she was one of those moronic "life is for the living types."

After all is said and done, the signs were all there for Amy. And I have to assume that she was bright enough to recognize them. When no less an authority on the matter than Keith Richards calls you out and you don't listen, you just have to assume the presence of a death wish.

That little girl has been playing chicken with death for years now. And today, she won.

Amy Winehouse was, in the perfect rock star cliche, 27 years old. I hope that this she finally finds peace.

"Cars are crashing every night - I drink and drive, everything's in sight"

Yeah, I know. I haven't been writing very much. The fact is that I've been a pretty busy boy of late and I'm bored to fucking death of pretty much everything. You can deal or, y'know, not.

One thing that I have been doing is reviewing comments as they come in, and that remains as educational as always. Sometimes I tend to forget that a great percentage of the population is so goddamned stupid that they face every day with the imminent danger of forgetting to breathe.

I have no idea why, but one of my most popular posts - according to no fewer than three different referrers - is something I threw out there almost exactly a year ago about Motley Crue vocalist Vince Neil's most recent drunk driving arrest.

The post was called "Nikki Sixx is an understanding fellow."I'm not sure why so many folks continue to read it because it isn't blindingly original or particularly well written. And while Vince has a bigger set of tits than most of the starlets and porno whores that I so lovingly chronicle here, they're the result of excess, laziness and stupidity, unlike Lindsay Lohan's. I'm just left to suppose that a good number of blog readers are starfuckers of has-beens, and they'll blow Vince Neil because they can't distinguish the singer of REO Speedwagon from his roadies.

Remember, last year's adventure in Vegas wasn't the former Mr. Wharton's first trip to the DUI rodeo. He actually got hammered behind the wheel and killed the drummer of Hanoi Rocks back in December of 1984. The two people in the car ol' Vince's Pantera plowed into were grievously and permanently injured. For this, he was sentenced to less than month in the county jail, where he got blowjobs from groupies that the Sheriff's Department let into his cell.

Vince Neil killed his friend and crippled two innocent strangers simply because he's an irredeemable fuck-up. And he paid virtually no price for it, other a $2.5 million dollar settlement and a couple of weeks of getting head behind bars. He's still able to freely travel the world, too. I'm not aware of a single country that has barred his entry due to his criminal record. Trust me, you would have an ... interesting experience trying to enter, say, Japan after having killed someone.

So Vince, being Vince, goes on to buy a fucking bar, gets wasted in it, and drives drunk again. That caught my attention, just as I would hope that it catches yours. This guy is a potential slow-motion serial killer.

Given that background - the facts of which are uncontested - I'm nothing less than stunned that I get comments like the one I got this past Monday.

I think you should go fuck yourself, and keep your damn thoughts to yourself. Everyone should, its not like they don't know what you fucking said already. It's not like Neil actually tried to kill the fucking guy. Like common, it was 25 years ago, and you know what shit happens. Find something better to write about, what if it happened to you, and honestly calling the guy pathetic is just un called for. I think your the pathetic one, you could have said this in a much nicer way.

Wow. I would have a hard time believing that you're not as mystified by that comment as I was.

Lookee, I've spent the last sixteen years listening to the world freak the fuck over O.J Simpson, Casey Anthony or both. But both Simpson and Anthony spent years in the hoosegow just awaiting trial, whereas Vince Neil did less than a month after being convicted of actually killing someone and wrecking the bodies of two other people. And then he put himself in the position where he could do it again.

Saying that "It's not like Neil actually tried to kill the fucking guy" only goes to prove that my anonymous friend is either genetically dishonest or a pituitary retard. If a vehicular homicide - what Neil was actually charged with - is intentional, it ceases to be vehicular homicide. Then it's murder. The law actually does make distinctions about these things, you know.

And the fact that it was 25 years ago is meaningless. I trust that my anonymous buddy wouldn't feel the need to excuse O.J if he married another uppity blond or Casey Anthony announced her intention to breed again. Or if Germany started lusting for Polish real-estate again. Of course, I don't know that. It's just a gut instinct of mine. It might well be that my commenter is an utter sociopath. Who can say?

I have an enviable library of rock n' roll fuck-uppery on my bookshelves, and I cherish it the way that most folks cherish their useless fucking children. I love stories of idiot savants destroying everything in their paths, up to and including themselves. If I were to guess, I'd say that I've read hundreds of such books.

However, Vince Neil is in a category all by himself. Most rock assholes only ever really hurt themselves. And they tend to do it in the most entertaining ways. In only the rarest of circumstances does anyone get seriously hurt or dead. Fat, untalented Vince killed one guy and crippled two others when he was 23 years old and could very well have done it again when he was 49.

If my new best friend feels it necessary to excuse that, I hope to God that no one he ever cares about is snuffed by a recidivist drunk driver. Because if the skell happens to belt out an especially jaunty version of "Too Young to Fall in Love", our pal might have to decide that the lives of his loved ones just weren't worth that much after all.

And, yes, I suppose that there's a "nicer way" for me to have said that, but fuck you. I find myself growing less tolerant of starfucking stupidity as I get older.

"All the Single Ladies ... "

Mash-up video ruthlessly stolen from Antiquiet.

A Very NSFW Christmas!

I've hated music for years now, and I hate Christmas music most of all. There's just no message in it that speaks to me on a level I can relate to, which is usually anger and sexual frustration. Besides, I've worked something like 11 out of the last 16 Christmases, so my giant cock and I have usually been alone over the holidays. And you know what? I'm okay with that, because I'm my type.

Well, all of that changed about five minutes ago, when I discovered Majela ZeZe Diamond and her Christmas message of hope. It's so basic, yet so fundamental to the higher spiritual aspirations of each of us. "Father Christmas Fucked My Pussy" changed me, and I'm pretty sure that it'll change you, too. Unless you're Mel Gibson or something. Ms. Diamond knows the real meaning of Christmas, and if you're lucky, you will, too. It's all about chanting the word "vagina" over and over again until you're dizzy.

Thankfully, I can schedule posts so that they appear after most of you have left your offices. Odds are that your boss doesn't appreciate the majesty of Majela or pussy. And some of you are real fucking daredevils about reading this blog at work. So I took the choice out of your hands, just like all the best Christians do.

Besides, you don't want to be wandering around your office singing "Father Christmas, fuck my pussy/ Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck my pussy" to yourself like the hymn it was meant to be, do you? That's the kind of thing you want to save for the family!

Video ruthlessly stolen from DListed

All This, And He Can See Sarah Palin From His House!

A Good Day To Clear Something Up

I like words. I guess being an internationally famous blogger would be a challenge if I didn't. There are certain words that are constantly misused and it does nothing short of drive me up a fucking wall.

For example, today is December 8th. The thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon's murder in New York City. For anyone my age, it's hard to believe that it's been nearly a decade since Ringo officially became the coolest living Beatle.

But what I'd like to point out is that Lennon was murdered. He decidedly wasn't "assassinated".

Back when words actually meant something, assassination was considered an inherently political act. It was meant to effect public policy in some way. While John Lennon was a very important musician - certainly one of the most important in modern popular music - he was not a political figure, his desire to give peace a chance notwithstanding.

Mark Chapman was a deranged loser with a Salinger fetish, but his crime of thirty years ago wouldn't meet the traditional definition of an assassination. It might have spared us from the biggest of disappointing reunion tours, but it didn't change history the way that, say, the Kennedy assassination's elevation of Lyndon Johnson to the presidency did. It wasn't the predicate to throw Europe into a huge, pointless war in the way that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand did.

A guy who played guitar and wrote some memorable songs was brutally murdered in front of his wife. He was not assassinated.

And you know what? It used to be that being brutally murdered in the street was bad enough.

Gene Simmons of KISS is Konfused.

I supported John McCain for the presidency two years ago. I supported him strongly and I supported him in the summer of 2007, when nobody else would. And I was wrong.

The appeal of McCain was that for years he stood up for what he believed was right, regardless of the cost to his standing in his own party. I can't think of too many politicians who would run a primary the way McCain did in 2000. As most of you know, the way to win a primary is to convince everyone that you're even crazier than your opponent. The Senator didn't do that. He ran on a set of principles (the shameful and stupid South Carolina Confederate flag sideshow aside). It doesn't really matter if you like those principles, but you have to admire that he stood up for them.

But John McCain sold his soul in 2008. He became just another Republican, who I still supported on the premise that he was just mistakenly doing what he thought he had to to win. In the aftermath of Election Day, McCain didn't stop cowering before the idiot fringe of the GOP.

Indeed, he went even further than he did during the campaign. McCain completely abandoned any pretense of principle because he was afraid of a jabbering huckster like J.D Hayworth - long thought by his colleagues to be among the very worst congressmen in a century - and that made me wonder what Vladimir Putin would have done to McCain had he become president. Anyone willing to so thoroughly sell himself out because of someone like Hayworth lacks the fundamental character to live in the White House. That's a sad thing to say about someone I admired, but that doesn't make it untrue.

That brings me to Barack Obama and Gene Simmons. Any number of people supported Obama simply because he's black. Don't get me wrong, I was as moved as anyone else when the black cat won. There are few other countries that would do that, mine included. But few people are as willing to admit that they voted solely on the basis of Obama's race as Gene Simmons is.



Here's the thing, if your vote is freely given on the basis of something as meaningless as skin color, you pretty much deserve what you get. Obama certainly didn't go out of his way to hide the fact that he's a liberal Democrat, and it wasn't a secret that he had the thinnest resume of a major party nominee since Lincoln.

There's one reason that I haven't wasted a lot of bandwidth going crazy about the Obama administration: he's doing pretty much what I would expect a very liberal Democrat to do, and I can't hold that against him anymore than I can hold my girlfriend's dog's insistence on humping my foot against it. If you know anything about anything, you know that ObamaCare is essentially a Republican plan. It's well to the right of what Richard Nixon proposed in 1971 and '74, and it mirrors the GOP plan of '94, which no fewer 23 Republican senators sponsored. The left is right to be pissed at him, but the right isn't.

If you're Gene Simmons - a self-declared business conservative - and voted for an unqualified statist liberal simply because you liked the optics of his skin tone, you have no right to bitch now. If you thought that Obama was going to govern like Reagan, you're either stupid or kidding yourself. Barack Obama wasn't lying during the campaign and if you thought he was, that's more your problem than his. And no, you don't get your fucking vote back.

Of course, I love the current GOP meme that because an unqualified liberal like Barack Obama was elected, they can freely nominate an equally unqualified Sarah Palin without criticism. He was a community organizer (who happened to kick the ass of the GOP across the country), but she ran the People's Republic of Alaska. And she quit halfway through the gig.

Gene Simmons is an almost legendary blowhard. That's why people like me love him so much. But there's something extra-special about his saying that musicians should shut up about politics after he spent nearly five minutes talking about Obama on TV. Seriously, he should have just broken out in a musical ode to fucking inappropriately young girls.

Mostly, I'm just sad that CNN cut away before Eliot Spitzer could ask for Gene to autograph his black socks.






Lovingly stolen from Five Feet of Fury

"Do You Know Where You Are? You're in Litigation, Baby"

Axl Rose is a lot like Sarah Palin. Although both leave behind them a long trail of almost unspeakable fuck-ups, neither is especially good at taking responsibility for them. To understand Governor Palin, you need to read her first book, Going Rogue, to learn that everything was Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace's fault. In Axl's case, just follow the lawsuits.

Famous people spend a lot of time in court. Specious lawsuits come with the territory. I get that. But after spending 15 years in hiding, can The Artist Formerly Known as William Bailey still be considered famous. It takes him a decade and a half to finish a mediocre record and he's plays to crowds half the size that he used to, when he plays at all. If he wasn't fraudulently calling his solo career Guns N' Roses, I don't think that anyone would know anything about it. But he spends more time in litigation than your average celebrity.

Everybody has their favorite Axl lawsuit. Most people liked the one where his ex-wife, Erin Everly, and his ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Seymore, joined forces to sue him for beating the crap out of them. Until this morning, my favorite was the conflagration between Rose and his former manager Irving Azoff. I happen to believe that Azoff; the nexus between Frontline Management, Ticketmaster and Live Nation; is the living personification of everything that's wrong with the music business. On the other hand, Axl Rose is a fucking nutter. Litigation like that is endlessly entertaining and it's what keeps me alive.

But now there's a better one. Axl's suing the makers of Guitar Hero III. Why, you ask? Because he doesn't like Slash very much, that's why.

The Guns N' Roses frontman has just filed a $20 million lawsuit against "Guitar Hero" maker Activision claiming its use of the GNR song "Welcome to the Jungle" violated a deal not to include any imagery of ex-guitarist Saul Hudson (aka Slash) in the popular game.

In an amusing lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, Rose and his Black Frog Music claim Activision Blizzard fraudulently induced Rose into authorizing "Jungle" for use in "Guitar Hero III" by telling him during negotiations that it wouldn't feature any reference to the former GNR member or his subsequent band Velvet Revolver.

" began spinning a web of lies and deception to conceal its true intentions to not only feature Slash and VR prominently in 'GH III,' but also promote the game by emphasizing and reinforcing an association between Slash and Guns N Roses and the band's song 'Welcome to the Jungle,'" the complaint states.

When Rose found out that a Slash-like character and Velvet Revolver songs would be included in "GHII," he said he immediately rescinded the authorization for "Jungle," but Activision allegedly lied and told him the inclusion was just for the purposes of a trade show.

Then "GHIII" came out and its box cover featured "an animated depiction of Slash, with his signature black top hat, long dark curly hair, dark sunglasses and nose-piercing," according to the complaint. In shot, the former GNR guitarist was all over "GH III," enraging Rose.

This is more complicated than it looks, because it focuses on how bands are actually incorporated businesses. Each member of a band is a partner in the business, unless that band is like the current Guns N' Roses, where everyone but Axl is an employee. As is true in most businesses, when a partner exits the venture, the remaining partners buy his stake in the partnership.

However, musical groups are more complicated than most businesses because of the importance of song publishing, which is traditionally where the money is. Publishing is yet another partnership, separate and apart from the band partnership. And no one in their right mind gives up their publishing rights. Let's say the Rolling Stones broke up tomorrow. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would still have to deal with one another because they would remain equal partners in their publishing business. If you wanted to include, say, "Gimmie Shelter" on your video game or movie soundtrack, Mick and Keef would have to agree to licence it.

If you look at the songwriting credits for "Welcome to the Jungle", you find that they're equally divided between Axl and Slash. Most Gn'R songs are divided compositions between Rose and some variation of Slash, Duff McKagan and Izzy Stradlin'. Accordingly, they would, in theory, remain partners in the publishing end of Guns N' Roses.

However, there's some controversy surrounding the ownership of original band's publishing. Five years ago, Axl merged the publishing with Sanctuary Music (which at the time also served as his management) without telling Slash and Duff. He may or may not have also pocketed their royalties. Slash and Duff, not being as stupid as they look, filed suit federal court. So far as I'm aware, the matter has yet to be resolved.

So that's one question that would have to addressed: Does Axl have the legal right to be negotiating publishing matters by himself? Yes, he did create Black Frog Music, but does it legally claim sole ownership of the GN'R catalogue? If not, the Activision suit is baseless.

But the funniest part of the saga is further down in the Reuters story;

"This lawsuit is about protecting Guns N' Roses and 'Welcome to the Jungle,' and is about holding Activision accountable for its misuse of these incredibly valuable assets," says Rose lawyer Skip Miller, "The relief we are seeking is disgorgement of profits and compensatory and punitive damages."

Axl has an odd way of "protecting" Guns N' Roses. Everybody but him left the band, and he hired studio guys to spend 15 years making a record that was only as good as the worst parts of Use Your Illusion I and II. He's late for concerts when he bothers to show up at all, and the 2002 tour was killed by promoters after two no-shows on Axl's part that resulted in riots. And that's ust during the years of the most recent version of GN'R. He was doing violently crazy shit during the 80's and 90's, too. Axl might somehow own the legal rights to the name "Guns N' Roses", but he's done a shitty job of protecting it.

If anything, Axl should thank Activision for openly associating Slash's image with both the song and Guns N' Roses. Even though he hasn't done anything worthwhile in years, people at least still think of him fondly, which can't be said of Axl.

On the other hand, seeing how the publishing issues work out will be fascinating for geeks like me.