Honey Roasted Peanuts

That's what I'm eating for the first night in a long time that I've actually felt at home, lying down in an actual comfortable bedroom that feels like my own. In case you're not my girlfriend or bandmate, I've lived as a pseudo-transient over the past few months, crashing on my drummer's living room floor, hiding out at my girlfriend's new house(thanks darling), and spending as little time as humanly possible at my "real" place, the $300 a month bedroom/prison cell I rented from a sweet girl at work with meathead boyfriend on a power trip. Have you ever been reprimanded for picking up a pen from a coffee table and moving it to another nearby table? Or how about had someone complain to you several times about eating their spaghetti sauce (which was actually your own)? Or how about not being allowed to receive mail, can't have your girlfriend over, can't use a plastic cup? I'm sure anyone with half a brain has not and I seem to have finally found my personal other half because I'm outta there! So now I'm really going to start writing in this thing on a regular basis, as I stated before, for I now have daily internet access! Hoorah, It's 1995. This week I'm in the running for internships at Philadelphia Weekly and Wonka Vision magazine. Fingers are crossed and I need to buy a new pair of shoes. Does Converse make dress shoes?

Album Review: The Cure "4:13 Dream"

I was listening to satellite radio the other day and amidst all the crappy singer-songwriters doing 80's covers and straight-up crappy singer-songwriters, on came a song that sounded a lot like The Cure circa 1992. With so many bands citing them as an influence nowadays, I figured it was just a new group copping their sound. Wrong. Sure enough, it was the Lovecats themselves. A big fan, I next assumed the song was a gem I had missed from the Wish era. Wrong again. Much to my surprise (and delight), there I was listening to "The Only One," the first single off the band's new album, 4:13 Dream. A bouncy and bubbly instant classic, the song hears little Bobby Smith cooing to the point of near babytalk, a little off for a 49-year-old, but it's sweet to know his heart hasn't died. And neither have the band's tight sound and sincere stabs at experimentation. 4:13 Dream is a well-rounded mix of New Wave, Beatlesque melody, grandiose shoegazing, and some pretty raw and sinister rock with only a few missteps along the way. "Freakshow" is The Cure for the iPod generation, a waste-no-time extraterrestrial rock song with a lead section awash in wah-wah and Smith snarling away like an angry young man again. Things calm down for the "Siren Song," a love song a with a shuffling rhythm akin to The Beatle's "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" with Smith singing "you'll never hear this song again." It's so sweet I hope his prediction is wrong. "The Hungry Ghost" is sharp and unsettling and "Switch" follows like a train into oblivion with a shattering delay and bleak keys. Smith is backed up by a chorus of his own ghosts to help him serenade and win his love back on the sing-along "Perfect Boy." With his love firmly back in place, the band follows with the tra-la-la nursery rhyme of "This. Here and Now. With You." But, in proper Cure fashion, the band dash away all the hope of it's love songs with some really dark stuff at the back of the album. "Sleep When I'm Dead" is a dance song for the fiends of the night, with a bewitching banshee-like chant of the title. The party moves to the carnival in the appropriately titled "Scream" (just listen!). The frenzied gallop of "It's Over" ends it all. 4:13 Dream is perfect bedroom listening, as it is as much a dream as it is a nightmare. It's neither groundbreaking nor complete throwback, but rather a solid album that shows the band doing what they do best.

Album Review: The Gaslight Anthem "The 59' Sound"

Bruce Springsteen has a Myspace page. I swear. And while I'm sure he doesn't spend his days taking surveys on who his favorite Jonas Brother is (he's too busy touring and not an idiot), he might have a say over who goes in his Top Friends, he might. The Gaslight Anthem, a punk and roll band from the Garden State, sit right at the top and it sure as hell makes sense. On The 59' Sound, the band's newest release for SideOneDummy Records, singer/guitarist Brian Fallon come pretty darn close to straight-up channeling The Boss during his heyday and the band's wistful punk-infused pub-rock only cements the similarity and appeal. The massive buzz on the Internet makes them look like an overnight success, but like many raised in the Jersey scene, they've been slugging it out for real on the road, touring relentlessly, exemplifying the working-class ethics of their songs. On The 59' Sound, we find a band some have referred to as pop-punk, waxing Americana, telling tales of late night drives, heartbreak and loss without coming off as whiny suburb kids and referencing 80's movies. These songs are heartfelt, not sappy, and just ooze feeling and images a cheap mall-punk song could never convey. There's really not much evidence of "punk" in its familiar form on this album, only in tempo and in the way the band have cranked out their own sound with no apologies to the crowd. They've described themselves as soul-punk, mentioning Sam Cooke and Jame Brown alongside Hot Water Music and The Bouncing Souls. They seemed to have travelled back in time and mined the history of rock and roll to tell a tale of their own. Album- and eye-opener "Great Expectations" sets the mood: hip-shaking rhythm, snare cracking, all of it drowning in reverb like old Tom Petty. The title track explodes Replacements-style and finds that sweet spot in between joy and sadness. It's great and the album's only flaw is repeating this song's formula throughout, but the songs shine regardless. The standouts are the deviations, like "Old White Lincoln" with it's Cure-esque bassline and the aptly-titled slow-burner "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" which even name checks Tom Petty. "The Backseat" surprises when it takes off like dark indie-rock, but settles into a steady anthem complete with a shout near the end straight out of "Glory Days." But it's fitting. And so is The 59' Sound. They've managed to be classic in 2008 and this album could not and should not be repeated. Like The Boss, they'll move on, and I'm excited to hear what's next. Here's hoping they're on his Top 8 long after the Jonas Brothers have disappeared.

Album Review: Alkaline Trio "Agony and Irony"

After 12 years of solid touring and a few celebrated underground releases, macabre pop-punkers Alkaline Trio have finally managed to get a foot in the door of the major label record industry. Unfortunately, for the fans, it just might be one foot in an unwelcome coffin. Their last effort, Crimson, released on independent giant, Vagrant Records, saw the band charting darker waters in terms of both songwriting and production. Matt Skiba's lyrics had always touched on the occult, but there was a contrast between the horror-movie lyrics and the upbeat music, something that gave them identity. The songs on Crimson actually sounded gloomy. On Agony and Irony, their newest release, the band find themselves with an overall brighter yet still very produced album, not unexpected for a band on Epic Records. They've simply taken the touches of pop/rock that's always been in their songs to their natural progression. It just may not be what old fans want to hear. Taking cues from 80's groups with airtight pop songs (Pat Benetar, Duran Duran), the hooks are huger, the production taken to the limit. It's apparent on 0:01 of the album opener, "Calling All Skeletons" when Skiba's voice is joined by hand claps reminiscent of The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl." The album's first single, "Help Me", a tribute to Joy Division's Ian Curtis and what appears to be Skiba's passion for music overall, leads off with a lighter-waving two-note lead that just screams arena! It's a catchy uplifting song with unexpected touches (a dancy prechorus, an unprecedented la-la bridge) that make the song it's own. Like the music itself, Skiba's lyrics have become a bit more optimistic, his familiar fucked-up fantasies show signs of hope, perhaps due to the fact he's been looking into transcendental meditiation. Who knows. "Help Me" and the following song "In Vein" were heard previously on a pre-release EP, the latter being a jerky talent show for Adriano's bass and Derek Grant's skittering drums that doesn't sound much different from any throwback dance-rock song you've heard in years, regardless, they do it right, and their penchant for roping in different styles grows with every album. The album's strong opening leads to a melodic but middling middle section. "Over and Out" is a sentimental anthem with dashes of Duran Duran. Adriano writes the album's catchiest filler in "Do You Wanna Know," lifting the chorus melody from Third Eye Blind's "How's It Going To Be." These songs show they've gotten fairly well at writing poppy alt-rock, something to be proud of, but far removed from their earlier raucous material. This isn't to say the band can't still rock it out, they just tuck the heavier stuff toward the end. "Lost and Rendered" is a crashing epic, filled to the brim with sharp rhythm and squealing guitar leads. Dan chimes in with his signature album oddity, a surfy little monster called "Ruin It." And classic Asian Man Records Trio meets the modern rockstars on album closer "Into The Night," echoing guitar side by side with Adriano's old-school running bass lines and a melodic nod to a song off From Here to Infirmary, "Private Eye."As a longtime fan of both the band and pop music in general, I believe they've only grown as songwriters, that I enjoy the album and look forward to what's next. They've reached a scary point in the punk scene though, where the line blurs seems to blur between a polished album and one seemingly aimed toward the mainstream. Pandering pop or whatever they'll call it, it's taking them places (MTV, pop radio). We'll just have to wait and see what it takes away.

Welcome to Paradise!

From this point on until the earth is consumed by the sun and all traces of humanity are obliterated and forgotten, this blog will be my personal space for rants, raves and whatever quirky little bit of info that pops into my bald little head. Fun fun! For the most part I'm going to review albums, live music, and video games and provide random insights into the life of a struggling punk musician who (not in secret) prefers the blissful pop of Wham! to the Dead Kennedys.

I'm going to try my best to post as much as humanly possible. Granted, there will be days when, by the force of God, a crappy wireless connection or a bad burrito, I may not be able to, but I'll try my damnedest. It's been a long time since I wrote on a regular basis. I've spent the last few years working tirelessly on my music career, not really doing much else. It's not that I'm a procrastinator, I just want to do so much my head gets crammed full of information and I end up writing one sentence, hammering one nail, skinning only one cat a day. So, I end up focusing on one topic, thinking a complete submersion in one thing will lead to something, but, as I've recently come to the conclusion, it's better to be well-rounded to get anywhere. I'm really excited to write again and hope this blog leads to something serious, as I'm a former J-school grad looking to break out of the cafe business.

But anyway, I'll leave dreary life analysis to my spiral notebook. This is my blog and, with time, I plan on turning this into something substantial and worthy of your time. So, if I hear a sick Teenage Bottlerocket album or play some cool game, I'll review it here. If I see a guy in a purple cowboy hat strutting around my neighborhood (which I did today), I'll probably comment on it and somehow tie it into some universal theme just because I can.

Here's to the future and to you for checking me out. Let's do this.