Ted, Just Admit It...This Album Is Awesome!

In the annals of rock and roll history there have been numerous groundbreaking and important albums released, way too many to mention in a short list here. “Game changers” from Sgt. Peppers to Enter the 36 Chambers are discussed, disputed, diluted and written about ad nauseam. From talking heads on VH1 (and bloggers such as us) to the employees of record and music stores worldwide, there are oft agreed upon standards of excellence that these records have established. You will be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t at least appreciate the significance of OK Computer or the influence of London Calling.

In the past thirty years or so you can probably list quite a few records that are “instant classics” in various genres (again, won’t even try to start naming them). But over time I am starting to get the feeling that the wrong album is being championed to the forefront of “alternative” rock classics: Nirvana’s Nevermind.  Now before I go on let me please state that I am a fan of the band and the album and in no way, shape, or form am I trying to devalue the record’s greatness. Like many other classic albums, it’s pretty much agreed upon that Nevermind was a game changer. The issue is, I think people are forgetting that perhaps an even greater and more influential album was released a few years earlier than Nevermind. An album that in hindsight seems almost more groundbreaking than it did when it was first released. An album that, unlike the claim by many that Nevermind was the “death of hair metal” actually was the beginning of the end of it. The album I am referring to is Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking.

Let’s go back to the mid-to-late-80′s when anyone on the wrong side of U2 and REM were pretty much reaching the end of their runs in the musical spotlight. Hair metal had taken over “real” metal as the most popular form of hard rock entertainment. While the salad days of hip hop were beginning, the end was near for bands like Poison, Ratt, and Motley Crue. Metallica was the lone wolf in the hard rock realm still holding on to the glory years of 70′s British New Wave of Metal while forging new ground (and a genre) with thrash. But girls didn’t really listen to Metallica. You still made out to power ballads by Warrant and if you were lucky, some slower Van Halen songs.

Then on August 23, 1988, a mesh-of-genres band from LA named Jane’s Addiction released their first proper studio album Nothing’s Shocking. I remember a friend watching a quick two-minute interview of the band on MTV and immediately running out to the mall to purchase the album (along with their excellent first live album) and coming home in a frenzy all fired up about his new discovery. He did this because he said, “they seemed kinda weird and different.” And different they were. Bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers had already been around for some time, as had the Butthole Surfers and Flaming Lips. But none of those bands had the unique gift of blending multiple genres of music without it sounding forced and none had broken into the mainstream yet. The Peppers were west coast punk funk, the Surfers were, well, a sound that can only be described as the Butthole Surfers, and The Lips were still a relatively unknown underground band of weird hippies playing Syd Barrett influenced noise rock.

Nothing’s Shocking hit the world like a musical meteor. The album had songs that any music listener could get into. The topics were edgy (for the time) and Perry Farrell’s vocal styling’s and voice effects were fascinating and unprecedented. The drumming was tribal and progressive, the bass playing was punkish, and the guitar style mixed the best of glam, hard rock, and psychedelic soundscapes. “What do they sound like?” was a very hard question to answer about Jane’s Addiction. They sounded like…Jane’s Addiction. If you saw them in concert at the time you witnessed a pre-Lollapalooza gathering of all types of music fans: goths, punks, metalheads, hippies, rockers, skaters, indie kids, alt kids, any kind of kids were present at a Jane’s show. They were a “cross over act” while receiving very little radio or MTV play outside of 120 Minutes and/or Headbangers Ball (Jane’s being one of the few bands at the time that could be played on either show legitimately). Songs like “Jane Says” were catchy enough to attract the ballad-loving listeners from the softer side of the hard rock landscape while “Pigs In Zen,” Had A Dad,” and “Ted, Just Admit It…” were aggressive and deep enough for the Black Flag crowd and “Standing In The Shower…Thinking” and “Idiot’s Rule” were danceable and upbeat so the Grateful Dead twirlers could join the party. Metalheads could get into “Mountain Song” and “Up The Beach” without loosing their “heavy” credentials and the stoners could most definitely zone out to “Summertime Rolls” on repeat for hours. It’s a masterful blend of rhythms, tones, and textures that seldom come together more perfectly and creatively than when a great band is at it’s peak.

Looking back now we have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight and sales figures. Sure, Nevermind sold a gazillion copies, influenced everything from dorm parties to fashionistas, broke punk, is on every critics top albums list, and contained one of the biggest songs of the past 25 years. Nothing’s Shocking ushered in the beginning of alternative music long before it’s early 90′s heyday. Before Gun’s n Roses put the final nail in hair metal’s coffin and Nirvana shoveled the dirt over the casket. The record contains sing-along folk, trippy epics, funky metal, and just enough production to create a well concerted effort that doesn’t sound contrived or dated. The songs are all over the musical spectrum but the album is able to maintain the cohesiveness of a great mix tape.

A funny story: one of my older brothers friends was very into music, mostly classic rock of the 70′s and 80′s. When Nothing’s Shocking came out I remember saying to him, “look out for this new band Jane’s Addiction. In three years they are going to be one of the biggest bands in the world.” His response was, “never heard of ‘em, whatever.” A few years later, after the release of Ritual de lo Habitual, the rise of “Jane Says” and “Been Caught Stealing” and a little event called Lollapalooza, I saw my brother’s friend. I said, “so…how about that Jane’s Addiction?” He just smiled in pleasurable agreement.

So now you just walked in and we’re playing a great new album called Temple Beautiful by Chuck Prophet.

Who? Longtime music fanatics might know of him from his days in the band Green On Red and his critically acclaimed solo catalog. But he’s far from a household name and, at age 48 and without controversy (or tits), he’s not exactly generating lots of pop-culture buzz. You can read up on him at AllMusic or Wikipedia if you’re so inclined, I won’t waste time rehashing his career.

Temple Beautiful, described by Prophet as “made in San Francisco by San Franciscans, about San Francisco,” comes off as a west-coast version of Lou Reed’s New York album: gritty and full of character and characters. Prophet calls it “an unsentimental (though loving) tour of San Francisco. My effort to tap into the history, the weirdness, the energy and spontaneity that brought me here in the first place.” Thus the comparison’s to Reed’s New York are obvious, but there are other more subtle references. Track 2 of Temple Beautiful is “Castro Halloween,” featuring “men in skirts and heels marching on…” while New York featured “Halloween Parade,” an ode to the impact of AIDS, in that same second song slot. And on the boisterous title track, the shout of “2 guitars, bass, and drums” sounds like a nod to the closing line of Reed’s liner notes for New York: “Can’t beat 2 guitars, bass, drums.”

Certain tracks are reminiscent of the sound and quality of Tom Petty’s finer works, but Prophet probably has more in common with Petty’s right-hand man guitarist Mike Campbell, as there are plenty of riffs and hooks to go along with Prophet’s at-times fierce guitar work. Similarly, instead of sounding like Bruce Springsteen he manages to invoke the garage-band authenticity and pop sensibilities of Bruce’s sidekick Steven Van Zandt. And at times, the album sounds not like Dylan, but more like his son Jakob, most of all on the Wallflowers-type grooves of “Willie Mays Is Up at Bat” and “He Came From So Far Away (Red Man Speaks).”

Prophet, far from the legendary status of Reed, Petty, or Springsteen, comes off as a relative unknown (despite this being his 12^th solo album) and it gives this album a likable underdog quality. And while parts of this record have been called “Dylanesque,” and rightfully so, it has more in common with the best albums by other medium-well known underdogs like Graham Parker, John Hiatt, or even Steve Earle, Ray Davies, Warren Zevon, or Paul Westerberg.

Occasional harmonica blasts and tambourines keep the sound organic, but Chuck’s guitar and songwriting are the show here. Catchy and rocking in some spots, brooding and poetic in others, Temple Beautiful is very much an album for album lovers. A cohesive collection of songs greater than the sum of their parts. There’s a natural analog vibe, a timeless sound, and just the right pacing and length to be appreciated as a complete work of art.

Temple Beautiful takes its name from a now-defunct San Francisco rock club, but the sweaty crowds and life-affirming music could be booming out of any little stage in the country. And this out-of-the-blue stunner of an album throws me back to the record stores (also almost all now defunct), where we first found the Great American Novel in musical form and to the dirty bars where we’d later blast them out. While Prophet might not quite be Kerouac with a guitar, it’s nice to know that in 2012, after so many of our beautiful temples are long gone, we can still discover yet another Great American Rock Album.

—————–

CLICK HERE to listen to the whole album streaming free.

Visit Chuck’s official site.

Everyone knows it’s an industry-insider’s popularity contest; an annual pat on the backs for the big boys; a reason to roll out a red carpet and sell TV ads. So I won’t waste too much time rehashing and chronicling all the reasons to ignore the Grammys. If you still need evidence, this is a great list of some of the all-time snubs at the Grammys. There are countless great artists who’ve never won or been nominated, but I’ll simply rest my case with this list of just some of the most famous musicians who never took home a statue:

Beach Boys
Bjork
Bob Marley
Chuck Berry
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Curtis Mayfield
Diana Ross
Gram Parsons
Grateful Dead
Janis Joplin
Jimi Hendrix
Led Zeppelin
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Parliament and/or Funkadelic
Nas
Notorious B.I.G.
Queen
Run DMC
Rush
Sam Cooke
Sly and the Family Stone
Talking Heads
The Byrds
The Doors
The Kinks
The Sex Pistols
The Who
Tupac Shakur

Meanwhile, Phil Collins has won 8 times. Oh, and Public Enemy never won one either…

This article about Super Bowl spreads seems like a perfectly good excuse to post this picture.

Super Bowl Weekend is finally upon us. Hopefully we can move past trivial story lines and the speculation about Peyton Manning and any other quarterbacks who will have no impact on this game. Actually, wait, scratch that. I’m just getting word that ESPN Insider Extraordinaire and General Everywhere Man Adam Schefter is reporting the NFL has just announced that during the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl, Tim Tebow will play Permanent QB for both teams.

Anyway, back to the actual game. The Super Bowl point spread had opened at around Patriots -3.5 and quickly moved down to -3, as it seems a lot of people really like the Giants in the matchup. The over/under opened at about 55.5 and is now down to around 54.

While everyone makes party plans and formulates their picks and best bets for the Super Bowl, I’ve found some more interesting stats and trends to consider:

Something to keep in mind about this stuff: just as with any trends…. at some point they don’t have much bearing on the actual game being played on the field. If the AFC favorites had won and covered 12 times in a row, that really doesn’t mean anything if Tom Brady throws two pick-6′s and Victor Cruz takes a 5-yard slant to the house. Just cuz the under has hit 4 out of the last 5 years, doesn’t mean that offenses led by Brady and Eli wont still go back and forth for a 31-27 game that goes over. I think people tend to get lost in trends: “oh, the last 4 times the Super Bowl featured a rematch with an AFC favorite of under 7 points with a democratic administration in the White House in an even-numbered year, the underdog won outright!!”

Huh?

I understand the idea of knowing your history, but it’s also wise to consider the fact that it’s just that: history. That said, let’s go inside the numbers of Super Bowl point spread history and results:

• The spread has been a factor only 7 times, twice pushing and 5 times the favorite didn’t cover. The other 38 games, whether the underdog or favorite won, the spread did not factor into the game.
• Five out of the last 7 Super Bowls have stayed UNDER the total.
• Six out of the last 7 Super Bowls has totaled 50 or fewer points including two games that produced just 31 total points.
• The favored team has won 15 of the last 21 Super Bowls, and 9 of the last 12.
• The NFC holds a 24-21 straight up edge over the AFC.

This fantastic book is not only a great resource full of facts and stats, it’s also very well written. It isn’t just a bunch of dates and results: it goes beyond those basics we all know and delves deep into each game and how and why it was actually won on the field.

There aren’t any glossy photos or filler in The Ultimate Super Bowl Book. McGinn doesn’t just rehash the most famous moments of only the best games. He retells the story of each and every Super Bowl through his own reviews of the game films and fascinating interviews with the players, coaches, and assistant coaches involved in the game.

Throughout the book, McGinn also mixes in several interesting Top 10 lists as sidebars. Another great aspect of the book is the fact that he lists the entire coaching staff for each team. We all know and remember the head coaches, but seeing and recognizing countless names among the coordinators and assistants is a useful football history lesson beyond the considerable information found in the text.

It’s incredible to hear the key players and coaches recount not only the big memorable moments but also the underlying strategies and perhaps unseen plays that swung the game one way or the other. Oftentimes they sound as if the game had just been won (or lost) last week and not years or decades ago.

McGinn, a longtime sportswriter for the Green Bay Press-Gazett and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has been a finalist for the McCann Award for excellence in pro football writing and was selected as one of America’s Top 20 Sportswriters by Men’s Journal. His expert storytelling and game recaps make this even better than just an exhaustive Super Bowl reference book, though it serves as that too.

I can’t recommend The Ultimate Super Bowl Book highly enough, especially at just under $15 at Amazon. Also available direct from the publisher, MVP Books.

In the music community, Bruce Springsteen is the stuff of rock legend: he’s certainly one of the greatest live acts of all time and among the most respected American songwriters south of Bob Dylan. But culturally, like his hero Dylan, Bruce has essentially become a political football.

Somewhere along the line, perhaps tiring of being punted back and forth, Bruce jumped off the sidelines (where he’d watched his song “Born in the USA” get co-opted as a patriotic anthem by Ronald Reagan and others) and jumped into the game by campaigning for John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008.

By early 2009, the guy who once used to shun any specific political affiliation and refuse TV appearances was now at the Presidential Inauguration and then the Super Bowl singing his latest jingle/anthem, “Working on a Dream.” That was an optimistic time, and the song was a hollow attempt to bring us all together for some kumba-ya call to roll up our sleeves and fix all that had broken in the Bush years. There was even some whistling in the song. Whistling.

Anyway, I didn’t like the song and thought the album was one of Springsteen’s worst ever. I’m a Bruce fanatic, but I’m not a total homer.

So now  Bruce is coming back with what’s being described as his “angriest” album in a long time. Guess he woke up from that dream. The new single “We Take Care of Our Own,” is from the forthcoming March release Wrecking Ball. The title track was originally written to mark the closing of the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey, but the title fits as a symbol of destruction for an album that we’re told addresses the current economic strife. The cover art, with Bruce and his signature Fender guitar behind the scrawled lettering of the title, evokes a “This Machine Kills Fascists” vibe, perhaps a nod to his other hero Woody Guthrie.

On first listen, “We Take Care of Our Own” chugs its way down E Street like most catchy Bruce songs. On the surface, it sounds like just a trite anthem: “Wherever this flag is flown,” he dares to sing as an echo to the “We take care of our own” refrain. The guy has been misunderstood as a jingoistic flag-waver for the last 25 years and now he’s gonna literally fly a flag right there in the hook of his new hit single? Really?

Ah, we forget (and some don’t realize) how sly Bruce can be. He knows his songs will be scrutinized and examined through a sociopolitical lens, and possibly co-opted yet again in an election year. So while the title and the flag imagery sound like a rah-rah yay America platitudes about how awesome we are…. Listen closely and you’ll hear the everyman rocker bearing witness to every man for himself; really wondering why we don’t actually take care of our own. And the only ones doing so are the politicians and the corporations that own them. They’re certainly taking care of their own (each other) while the rest of us are left to whistle while we work on a dream.

On 1980’s The River, Bruce asked “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true?” Well 2012 Bruce isn’t quite ready to overtly call out President Obama as a liar (at least on this track), but he does sing “I’ve been stumbling on good hearts turned to stone, those good intentions have gone dry as a bone” in the first verse.

The track starts with pounding drums and high-pitched guitar noise. Compared to the safe pop/schlock of “Working on a Dream,” this sounds like battle drums and sirens. As it settles into that first verse, there’s a subtle percussion shuffling akin to a Simon & Garfunkel track almost buried in the mix. Once the song kicks in and the guitars get a little heavier, Bruce knifes through America, not the right or left, but slicing right down the center: “From Chicago to New Orleans/From the muscle to the bone.”

The very next lines get specific, as he reminds us “From the shotgun shack to the Superdome, we needed help but the cavalry stayed home.” He’s invoking Katrina, 2005, but the next line updates the message and generalizes it to apply to our tone-deaf politicians who only take care of themselves and the special interests who pay their way into office while the economic storm floods us all out of our homes: “There aint no one hearing the bugle blowin’.”

A generation ago, Springsteen followed the optimism of “pulling out of here to win” in “Thunder Road” by writing a gloomy response called “The Promise” (and what happens when it’s broken). This time he follows the hope of “Working on a Dream” with a line that repeats “Where’s the promise from sea to shining sea?” The everyman rocker winces at every man for himself. Again he toys with patriotic language to essentially ask “What the fuck happened to the American dream? Where’s the promise?” Just like he used the pride of chanting “Born in the USA” to wonder why people who were born here and fought in Vietnam were abandoned upon their return.

That’s what I mean about Bruce being sly. He’s dressing up this new song with lines like “wherever this flag is flown” and “sea to shining sea,” this time knowing and expecting that it will be misunderstood. And if/when some politician tries to play this at a rally or make this anthem their own, they’ll end up admitting the obvious: “We Take Care of Our Own.”

Musically, this is classic (even if somewhat generic) Springsteen from the standpoint of the piano/glockenspiel sound tinkling atop the pulsing guitars and drums. It’s got a bounce not unlike “Badlands” and “The Rising,” but with the late Clarence Clemons’ saxophone noticeably absent.

If you don’t like Bruce Springsteen, there’s plenty here not to like: the usual Bruce-isms like the la-la’s in the outro tailor-made to be echoed in concert arenas, the aforementioned flag imagery and faux patriotism, and that rich-man-in-a-poor-mans-shirt shtick he’s been riding for most of his career. But for Bruce fans from the fanatic to the casual, it’s a welcome return to respectability and perhaps a sign that he might have one more great album left in him.

The Roots' Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson and Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter. Photo by Chago Akii-bua.

At some point, “The new Roots album is really good” became a cliché we’ve been taking for granted since the release of their fourth album, things fall apart, in 1999. They’ve since dropped six more gems, some better than others, but all so consistent and at times stunning in their quality that we’ve just become immune, desensitized, and unappreciative. Oh, yea… The Roots have a new album. I heard it’s really good.

Every other year I find myself telling this friend or that about how great the new Roots album is, stressing its brilliance and begging to be taken seriously… feeling like the boy who cried wolf, except I’ve never lied.

Their legendary live shows, their solid canon of classic studio albums, their recent high-profile gig as house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon… the bar has been set pretty high. And yet with each new release, as they continue to sail over that bar and raise it higher and higher, we shrug our shoulders and nod our heads and put The Roots on our year-end best-of lists and that’s that.

Since 1999′s things fall apart spawned the hit “You Got Me,” the Roots have quietly blessed us with a run of albums that could rival others entire careers, starting with the wildly eclectic Phrenology (what I call their White Album in how experimental and psychedelic it is) and continuing through The Tipping Point, Game Theory and Rising Down. These four albums over six years seemed to come and go, pure genius being ignored right out in the open.

Then in 2010 came How I Got Over, a late-career classic. A “mature” hip-hop album that was still a banger, it was universally hailed as a masterpiece (and yet still probably shrugged off as “another great Roots album”). With their killer collab album with John Legend, Wake Up!, released on its heels that same year, I assumed How I Got Over might be their last album for a quite a while…  And then at the end of 2011, bam!, they hit us with undun. And once again, they’ve outdone even themselves.

As the press releases and subsequent reviews have said, undun is “an existential re-telling of the short life of one Redford Stephens (1974-1999),” a loose-narrative concept album told in reverse about the death of the fictional struggling everyman from the hood. It starts with the flat-line beep sound of his death and then goes back to tell the story of ghetto inevitability.

After countless listens on repeat, I don’t see (or hear) it as “told in reverse,” as much as it seems circular. You can come in at any point and pick it up. It’s like a classic movie on cable, like Goodfellas, where no matter what part is on when you find it, you feel compelled to watch the rest even though you know how it ends. And when the instrumental suite that closes the CD ends…. it starts again with the flat-line beep, and before you know it you’re circling around for another turn with this all-too-familiar American tale of desperation and destiny… like the endless cycle of lives trapped along the poverty line.

To catch a thief, who stole the soul I prayed to keep
Insomniac, bad dreams got me losing sleep
I’m dead tired, my mind playing tricks, deceit
A face in the glass, unable to admit defeat
All that I am, all that I was is history
The past unraveled, adding insult to this injury
I’m fighting the battle for the soul of the century
Destiny is everything that I pretend to be
Look, and what I did came back to me eventually
The music played on, and told me I was meant to be awake
It’s unresolved like everything I had at stake
Illegal activity controls my black symphony
Orchestrated like it happened incidentally
Oh, there I go, from a man to a memory
Damn, I wonder if my fam will remember me

That’s the very first verse we hear from Black Thought. If I decided to quote any more of his brilliant one liners and verse-long portraits, it would fill this whole post. Just go read them, or better yet, submerge yourself in this record and hear a lyrical master at work, in both writing and delivery. His basic style/flow may have been birthed by the legendary Rakim a generation ago, but Black Thought absolutely belongs in any type of “Top 5 MC’s of All Time,” list/argument you want to make. He might not have the cultural impact of Tupac or Biggie; He’s been around for close to 20 years on record, but he’s not quite a pioneering legend like Chuck D or KRS-One; he’s not as flashy as Nas, Eminem, or Andre 3000. And while he’s undoubtedly benefited from the beats, production and leadership of ?uestlove, it’s also possible that Black Thought’s “legacy” is diminished cuz we just hail them as The Best Hip-Hop Group (by a mile) and we never quite give BT his due. Taken for granted once again.

On this latest album, Black Thought is so concise, as plain spoken yet creative with his wordplay and metaphors as ever. Anchored by a revolving door of guest MC’s led by veteran Roots role player on the mic Dice Raw, Black Thought gets the most out of every line, no words are wasted, every rhythmic turn and lyrical phrasing complementing the beat as if it was actually part of ?uestlove’s drum kit.

One of the most interesting recent quotes I read from Black Thought was about his serious approach to the writing:  “Everything you hear me saying on this record is at least the fourth or fifth draft. I would write a verse and then rewrite it and rewrite it. I don’t sit down and write a song, and then slam down the phone like, ‘We got another one!’ and pop some champagne. It’s like if someone’s writing a novel: You write a series of drafts.”

Like a great American novel, I hope that after all the accolades and Grammy nominations and glowing blog reviews, we all remember this incredible album, this snapshot of a society crumbling… with too many people “face down in the ocean, and no one’s in the lighthouse,” and too many others too busy watching the throne.

Compared to it’s predecessor, undun is sonically stark, but still extremely effective. Musical storytelling that paints pictures behind the stunning verses. If they’d never sent out the blurbs about this being a “concept album,” we still would have picked up on the cinematic vibe. It’s like the kind of movie that makes you fall in love with movie making again. And while this particular one has sadly played out in American streets over and over again, undun will still be worth revisiting and repeating for years to come.

Undun is not just “another great Roots album,” (though it is that). It reminds you that albums are an art form and luckily artists like the Roots are still making them.

This legendarily bad-ass band logo was etched into school notebooks more often than schoolwork was.

If the Mike Damone character from Fast Times at Ridgemont High were a real person, I bet he’d be pretty psyched about Van Halen coming back with a new album with David Lee Roth.

I can’t say that I have terribly high expectations for the new album, nor do I plan to see the upcoming tour. Actually, I’m just using the occasion of Van Halen’s “reunion” to examine my love for the band’s first six albums and try to pinpoint the unique appeal of Van Halen.

The word reunion was in quotes in the previous paragraph because VH actually “reunited” with Sammy Hagar for a tour in 2004, and they did a full tour with Diamond Dave himself in 2007. People act like these guys haven’t been in the same room since 1984. Of course the difference this time is that they are actually putting out a new album. With Dave.

If the opening Fast Times movie reference didn’t resonate with you, you might just not be that into Van Halen, or remember how big and truly great this band once was. I saw them on the Diver Down tour in 1982, when I was just 12 years old experiencing my first real arena rock concert. Amazing and unforgettable. (I saw them again in 1986 on their first tour with Sammy.) Growing up in a musical family and having our dad take us to see Van Halen seemed like he was giving it his stamp of approval. And seeing those two Van Halen brothers up there probably launched rock star ambitions in my brother in me.

Sure, the face of the band is the other-worldly technical prowess of guitarist, band leader, and namesake Eddie Van Halen. Or is he insisting on EDWARD Van Halen this week? Anyway, he of “Eruption” immortality, with that red and white-striped guitar and that sly grin that always found the camera… he is “Van Halen.”

But my real motivation to put pen to paper and click post to blog, and my conclusion to why Van Halen was so great, and why we love them: Alex Van Halen.

That’s right, Eddie’s brother, the drummer, Alex Van Halen. This ain’t no Billy Ripken or Frank Stallone. When we think of “Van Halen,” we think of guitar virtuosity, the band of the same name, and the grinning guitarist who married the chick from One Day at a Time. We rarely think of Alex, also a band namesake, but when you listen to their old albums you realize that his drumming was a huge part of why Van Halen records were so fucking fun to listen to. Hey, Eddie did amazing things on the guitar and made sounds no one had ever heard before, and millions have emulated since. But so did Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Yngwie Malmsteen. But people never listened to their records. They listened to Van Halen. Alex’s beats and fills kept Eddie’s wankery palatable to the ear.

Drummers growing up in the 80′s might have obsessed over “Tom Sawyer” and held Neil Peart up just a little to high for our own good… but Alex Van Halen showed us how awesome the job of Rock Drummer really was. (And his “Hot for Teacher” intro kept plenty of kids busy too.)

It was Alex’s drums that gave Eddie and the band a soul, a real groove for Diamond Dave to dance to, a primal and expressive rhythm to match the party vibe and sexuality of the lyrics. When you go back and really listen to the deep tracks off the old albums, get beyond “Jump” and “Jamie’s Crying,” you’ll hear a guy hammering with the precision of a Stewart Copeland, but with a hammer borrowed from John Bonham.

Producer Ted Templeman also got a such a great sound out of Alex’s drums. This is another underrated factor about why those old Van Halen albums were so great, but mostly it’s Alex’s execution and performance. I’m not gonna say he was as good as Bonham or Keith Moon (or even Copeland or Peart or whoever). It’s all subjective and “better than” and rankings are a bit pointless among such greats. But Alex Van Halen might be one of the most unappreciated or unsung great drummers of all time. Throughout the years and lineup changes, it was Alex as much as Eddie who put the muscle behind The Mighty Van Halen.

"I heard ya missed us... we're back!"

Despite all the back and forth, and the fact that Van Halen had several hits and plenty of success with Sammy Hagar those first few years, the other face (and head, heart, ego, id, and crotch) of this band is undeniably David Lee Roth. I’m not sure he doesn’t belong on the Mount Rushmore of Frontmen, but that’s another discussion. While his pure vocal gifts are certainly limited, and his lyrics are sophomoric and forgettable, Dave had delivery. Not just phrasing and screaming, though he excelled there. His love of old soul and R&B music infused his performance and gave him a pulse underneath those vocal gymnastic tricks (the “screaming”) that could have held their own on records by Iron Maiden or Judas Priest.

We forget that about Diamond Dave. He’s such a boiling pot of carnival barker, Vegas-style lounge act, and pure rock front man that seemed equal parts Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, and Stephen Tyler. The ultimate rock star. He seemed like a guy willing to shine your shoes and able to sell you a car. Oddly, he dressed and pranced around like the hot platinum blonde bimbos that littered the bands lyrics. Every other song is about a girl in a magazine, a chick from an adult cinematic feature, a stripper, prostitute, or groupie. Song titles included “Hot For Teacher,” “Beautiful Girls,” “Dirty Movies,” “Sinners Swing,” “Women In Love,” “Girl Gone Bad,” “Everybody Wants Some.” You get the idea.

And that was part of the appeal of Van Halen. It was un-apologetically hedonistic. Its misogyny softened by the excuse that they were portraying the role of cliché rock starts and this is just what they did. If Free Love allegedly died at the end of the 60′s, and the post-Beatles/Vietnam era of the 70′s was a bummer about to be capped off by disco (and then the impending cheese of the 80′s/MTV era), Van Halen sat on that cusp, from their debut in 1978 to their smash-hit breakthrough (and last album with Dave, itself a cornerstone of that 80′s/MTV era) in 1984, and they said let’s throw one more huge party.

The old stuff holds up.

They served as a bridge from Sabbath/Zeppelin to hair metal and Guns’n'Roses, for better or worse. They managed to be both heavy hard rockers and video pop stars. They spent their allotted time as “The Biggest Band in the World,” as many have, but they had the musical chops to stand the test of time, as evidenced by those first six albums.

I’m not going to attempt to retell or summarize what happened between Eddie and Dave, between Eddie and Sammy, between Eddie and bass player Mike Anthony, between 1984 and the 2012 album/tour announcement. Because not only do the particulars not matter, there’s too much he-said/he-said about who quit and who was fired. I think it’s possible to conclude that Eddie Van Halen might be a little bit of an asshole.

It’s one thing to fight with and replace singers and all that, but in the case of bassist Michael Anthony, a serviceable bassist and very good high-harmony singer that was an integral part of the band’s sound, Eddie actually fathered and raised a human replacement for him! That might be one of the greatest band feud/personnel stories ever. “Oh yea? I will fire you and make a new person to take your place!” OK, I realize Eddie (and Valerie Bertinelli) didn’t have little Wolfgang knowing he too would end up in the band. But ya never know…

Anyway, having “the old Van Halen coming back,” has at least been a great reminder and excuse to rekindle one of my first flames. Upon further review, I think Fair Warning is their best album with Van Halen II appropriately second.

So when Van Halen drops A Different Kind of Truth in February, I’ll check it out. I won’t fret if it sucks. I imagine Eddie will likely have a few cool tricks up his sleeve… Diamond Dave will probably be a creepy shell of his former self, and hopefully he’ll keep his hat and shirt on. But my eyes and ears will be on Alex the Great.

So Kobe sets up on the perimeter and Shaq works the post. Fisher, I want you to backdoor your pass from the foul line over to Gasol. And please make sure you write a bridge!

As readers of some of my previous posts might already know, there is nothing I enjoy more than correlating music with sports. Today I would like to ask this profound-yet-absolutely-meaningless-question:  Just how important is the coach to a team or a record “producer” to an artist when it comes to success?

Is George Martin the greatest record producer ever because he happened to be in the room during all of those Beatles recordings or because of his influence in that room? Is Phil Jackson the greatest coach who ever lived because of the triangle offense and his ability to motivate or was he lucky to have Jordan, Shaq, and Kobe? Would George Martin be able to get the same results with, say, a band like Strawberry Alarm Clock?  Would Phil Jackson be able to win a slew of championships with Kevin Ebanks and Manute Bol?

Most people aren’t one hundred percent sure of what a record producer even does. I am not sure if any producer really knows either because the job is more akin to being a creative consultant.

Hey Producer, look at this product we have and tell us what you think about it. Maybe you can comment on its looks, colors, and shapes and present us with some additional options we might like. You can even carouse us to think of some new ideas ourselves. Since we really respect your thoughts and past works we will assume you know what you are talking about.

Or someone might be called a producer for the simple fact that they helped finance a project. Rick Rubin gets paid to produce Metallica records, he doesn’t finance them himself. But if you see a listing for an “Executive Producer” on a band’s record then more than likely that person was simply laundering money from the profits of their cocaine business.

There is no real question as to what a coach’s role on a sports team is. The coach is the boss. The coach makes the team rules, sets the teams goals, teaches the players how to run plays and schemes, and when really good at their jobs will shield the players from any external distractions, whether they be personal or professional. You often hear younger players refer to their beloved coaches in a paternal fashion.  Some athletes will go as far as comparing their coaches to generals in the field with whom they “go to war with” and “battle” alongside. You think John Lennon spent his time praising the greatness of George Martin?

I am not here to downplay the role of the producer when it comes to great music. A great producer (like a great coach) can take mediocre talent and extract greatness from it. Just listen to any Dr. Dre produced album: you might not like the songs or even the style of music but you will without a doubt respect how good it sounds (i.e. well produced). Would Dark Side of The Moon be the same legendary album had Alan Parson’s not help produce it? Probably, the same way those Jordan/Pippen teams of the 90′s probably would have still won championships without Phil Jackson. The 98 Yanks would’ve won the World Series with me as their manager.

What about when a good producer does a bad thing? I, of course, am referring to Clive lets-make-up-for-30-years-of-ignoring-the-classiest-most-interesting-guitar-player-on-the-planet-by-producing-a-made-for-the-masses-crossover-singles-album-with-today’s-young-pop-stars Davis. Supernatural sold 700 billion copies and made Santana a house hold name (…again…if it wasn’t already–which is a shame unto itself). Look, I love and respect Carlos Santana perhaps more than any other guitar player alive today but the fact that “The Academy” only got around to giving him Grammies for that Clive Davis-produced-shitfest vs. anything he did in the 70′s is ludicrous. Clive Davis has an amazing history of evaluating and discovering talent.  But Mr. Davis took an artist known for one thing (incredible musicianship and fusion of styles) and turned him into another (pop rock artist). And Carlos went along for the ride, so he should be called out on that to some degree as well.

I do feel that within the athletic world the role of a coach has a much more influential role than a good record producer might have. The band (usually) still writes their own songs, but players rarely draw up their own plays (unless they are the Brady, Mannings, and Kobes of the world). In this day-and-age you hear about the miraculous one-year-turnaround in sports rather frequently. A team is 4-12 one season, hires a new coach and go 12-4 the next with relatively the same talent. When was the last time Rick Rubin took a band that was horrible and made them great? He took a band that was on the cusp in the early 90′s and transformed them into megastars, but the band was good before he got there. He just made them better. Nigel Godrich has masterfully produced numerous Radiohead albums, but couldn’t do shit when presented with The Strokes.

The debate is never-ending and completely circumstantial. Sometimes a great coach can win with a good team and sometimes a producer can fail with a great band. And vice versa. The interesting aspect of all this is how the coach and the record producer share a very similar role in their respective fields: to collaborate and extract great performances. And in both fields each will sometimes get too much praise for success or too much ridicule for failure (athletes must execute plays and musicians must write good songs). In the end though, I would much rather sit in a control room with Macca discussing the merits of adding a french horn to the bridge than writing X’s and O’s on a chalkboard trying to figure out how to stop Aaron Rodgers from dissecting my secondary.

The Roots – undun
The masters of album making strike again. The Roots have been so consistent and set the bar so high that seemingly every year or so they drop another classic on us and we put them on our year-end lists and talk about how great they are, and yet it still feels like we somehow take them for granted. Saving the best for last and releasing it in December, The Roots’ stark narrative, with the accompanying musicality well beyond just the beats, stands as perhaps the best album of the year.

Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire
The return of Ryan Adams features not only his best set of songs since 2005, but his voice sounds better than ever. His co-MVP’s here are legendary veteran producer Glyn Johns and keyboardist Benmont Tench (of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers).

P.J. Harvey – Let England Shake
Maybe the most unique and interesting albums of the year. Stark and fluttering, subtly explosive, beautiful yet blunt. This one took home prestigious awards and topped a lot of other lists, and it’s way high up on mine as well. Engaging and as urgent as she’s always been, but perhaps her most musical album to date.

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
I once described Fleet Foxes as a soundtrack for doing yard work at a Renaissance festival. And while that doesn’t make a lot of sense, I meant it in the best possible way.

Megafaun – Megafaun
Impossible to describe. Somehow manages to sound like both CSNY and Hot Chip. Comes off weird and eclectic, but still full of hooks.

Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What
Not quite right up there with Graceland or The Rhythm of the Saints, it’s certainly still a “return to form,” as the press releases like to say. And in between the spots where it bounces like those albums, he sprinkles in a few mellow numbers reminiscent of his 1970′s ballads.

The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
This time they tone down the lush, orchestral emo-pop sound of their previous album, Hazards of Love, and return with a rustic and rootsy affair, with a solid assist from Peter Buck on guitar.

Middle Brother – Middle Brother
Collaboration of lead singer/songwriters (Deer Tick’s John McCauley, Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, and Delta Spirit’s Matthew Vasquez) team up for a simple but stunning record that underscores each of their (potential) places in the next generation of great American songwriters. It’s like if Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and John Mellencamp recorded an album together, but did so in 1981-82, around the time they were each making Nebraska, Hard Promises, and American Fool. Actually it’s not really like that at all. Where was I? Oh yea, back to the list.

The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient
Droney and addictive.

Radiohead – The King of Limbs
People either love Radiohead and swear by them as the best and most important and innovative band on the planet, or they don’t “get” them and think they’re overrated. There’s no point in me writing about them, other than to say The King of Limbs was a slow burn, took a while to grow, still one of my favorites from this year.

Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring From My Halo
This is a great record that took me a while to actually dig. I’d hate to cheapen it with a string of bullshit music-critic buzzwords and catchphrases… but the retro anti-folk of Smoke Ring From My Halo successfully mixes Dylanesque phrasing with Lou Reed-style street poetry, and somehow comes out smelling like indie rock.

Dawes – Nothing Is Wrong
I like this better than their much-acclaimed debut. Full of subtle hooks and natural emotion, this has a crispy 70′s feel with all the guitars up front in the mix.

Explosions in the Sky – Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
Instrumental rock experts hit us with another dynamic set.

The Antlers – Burst Apart
Another one that is kinda hard to describe. At times a bit odd, but mostly beautiful.

The Black Keys – El Camino
This is right behind The Roots’ undun in the “Best for Last” category. Dropping in December, this one brings the heat right outta the box. Once it’s given more time to sink in, it might end up being the best album of the year.

It’s always so tough to pick only 10 records.

Let’s start our look back on a great year in new music with a list of the Top 10 Albums of 2011 that we actually wrote reviews for here on Bums Logic. This crop of reviews represents some of the core material published as we launched this new site in 2011 and we thank you all for listening and reading along.

Next week we’ll add another dozen or so favorites from this year that we didn’t write about…. and then maybe think of an excuse to add others, or combine them into one master list and rank them in order. Or not.

So here’s our Top 10 Albums (That We Reviewed) From 2011, in no particular order, and all with links to our original reviews:

Tom Waits – Bad As Me

Drive-By Truckers – Go-Go Boots

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Here We Rest

Wilco – The Whole Love

Mastodon – The Hunter

Stephen Marley – Revelation Pt.1: Root of Life

Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Pt.2

G. Love – Fixin’ To Die

Sonic Youth – Simon Werner a Disparu

I have already stunned the world with my kick ass graphic design skills.  Avid fans have proven that my video stardom is nearly unparalleled with more than 20 views of my astounding display of  badassery.

Many fans have to be wondering, what’s next?  In what other ways can the amazing JrWorthy42 amaze with his seemingly boundless talents?

One that note, I present to you what is sure to be a hit in clubs, bars and bodegas across the globe – my very first pop sensation, ‘It Burns’.

You world will be changed forever. I know this.

When he arrived I showed him the furnace and told him that I think the thermal coupler was probably the culprit. After offering my analysis regarding the cause of the furnace’s state of disrepair I was quick to tell him that he shouldn’t take my word for it since all of the knowledge I possess  regarding boilers can fit on one side of a cocktail napkin.  James, the repair man, gave a couple of attempts at lighting the pilot light and low and behold my diagnosis of the problem turned out to be correct.  I love it when I sound handymanly.

James made short work of the installation of the new thermal coupler and together we got the furnace up and running in no time.    Once the furnace was running I told him about another issue of one of the pipes leaking water.  James informed me that it was a pressure release valve and that we would probably need to let all of the water in the system circulate before we would see any leaking.  Shortly thereafter we discovered that I have been flirting with death for weeks now.

CO poisoning will fuck you up!

James decided to run a carbon monoxide test while we waited for any signs of leakage. Well wouldn’t you know it. The early run of the test showed that the CO levels were around 3 parts per million. A level of 3 ppm is not such a big deal but according to James he fire department will shut a boiler down if it reads 8 ppm. Quickly the reading of 3 ppm on his CO detector went up to 10 ppm.

A reading of 10 ppm? That can’t be correct, can it?  Looking around the boiler closet we saw that there was a CO detector installed on the wall and we decided to push the test button.  The instant James hit the test button the house alarm went off.  Quickly I surmised that the CO detector was connected to the home security system.  Without being rattled I shut the alarm off and we didn’t think anything about it. After our quick thinking and action we noticed that the CO detector had shot up to 50 ppm.

50 ppm? The folks at OSHA say that is the maximum amount for anyone wanting to stay in the ‘being alive’ business.  Once you start to creep up higher than that, things progressively get worse.  I could go on and on but as CO levels climb around you the less time you have before you simply just check out, for good.

Remember the part about the home alarm? If you forgot, don’t worry because the fire department didn’t.  They showed up at the house in what seemed to be minutes after the alarm shut off. Apparently the fire department knows that CO poisoning is serious business and they arrived in force to rescue folks that could be die in 1-3 minutes if levels get too high.  That is some serious shit there CO, not cool.

James and I were able to ward off the fire department by telling them that we had set the alarm off by accident.  Thank goodness too because I didn’t want firemen traipsing through my apartment to tell me what I already knew, CO is bad. Very, very bad and not in the naughty fun way.

I see that this post is rather long but I want to warn the fans of Bums Logic to make sure that you have proper working CO detectors installed.  The one I have was on the floor by the boiler not plugged in nor did it have a battery backup. Whoops! James also said that the CO detector connected to the home alarm system probably only goes off when the CO levels get to extremely dangerous levels. In the interest of cutting this short, by the time things had calmed down the CO detector James had was reading over 60 ppm. So now the heat is off and my landlord is looking at a hefty bill for the installation of a new boiler.

So in closure, with winter rapidly approaching and the thermometer dropping folks need to be sure to have CO detectors installed and tested when the furnace goes on to keep us warm at night.

I apologize if this post annoyed you given that it is without any humorous anecdotes so to make up for it I give you the following…

Non sequitur, I really hope that Bieber kid did knock up that woman in LA last year. Is it gossipy and totally non-news worthy? Yes. But come on, the little shit needs to be knocked down a peg or two.  Maybe then he will experience real life and possibly make better music, not just for the world but also for his Baby, Baby, Baby.

Tom Waits, and attempting to pinpoint or even describe whatever “Tom Waits Music” might be, is a bit like that old quote about defining the legal threshold of pornography: “I know it when I see it.” And we all know Waits when we hear him. One of the better descriptions was when Elton John called Waits “the Jackson Pollock of song.” And I also agree with one reviewer’s assessment of Waits as “more of a mad mechanic than a painter to me: a man collecting rusty old wrecks of vintage American music and getting them to clatter-bang back to life — untaxed, uninsured and possibly with a corpse left rotting in the boot.”

As for my only stab at a description of Waits and his music. I think of him as the musical equivalent to the possibly crazy eccentric guy in the song “What’s He Building In There?” from 1999′s Mule Variations. All these years he’s been clanging around that house, banging on pianos and knocking over bottles while I’ve been busy listening to everyone else’s records but also wondering about that Tom Waits guy. What’s he building in there?

I’m not qualified to really break down Tom Waits and provide some semblance of an attempt at a professional critique, in the sense that I’ve only ever heard a few of his records. I’ve always known and respected Tom Waits, he was someone who I’ve always wanted to like. And somewhere I still have the cassette copy of swordfishtrombones that a friend made for me years ago. But beyond that I don’t own any of his records, I can’t honestly say that I’m at all familiar with his whole body of work but I certainly know what he sounds like.

That’s why, instead of “reviewing” his great new album, Bad As Me, and in the process banging out a mini-Wiki regurgitation of his career, I thought I’d throw a bunch of other proper reviews into a word cloud and see if all those Waitsian adjectives and imagery would come bursting out. You know, like “boozy” or “growl” and variations of carnival barkers and closing-time balladry. Possibly some smoke. I mean, those are the words we use when we talk about Tom Waits because his inimitable vocal stylings bring to life such a litany of real characters’ characters.

Interestingly enough, the word cloud (consisting of more than 10,000 words taken from recently published reviews) is a bit short on the old weird American saloon imagery I’d expected. But it turned out pretty cool. Words like new and Bad were prominent as every review of course mentioned that Bad As Me was the new record [we threw out the word “Waits”].

Pretty neat to look through the cloud, a bit like combing through one of Waits albums, where little vignettes are splattered across the page and phrases reveal themselves depending on how you look at them.

Prominent guests like Keith Richards and Waits’ wife/collaborator Kathleen Brennan show up. Funny that “Richards” appears near the words “time” and “years” and “guitars” (and Kathleen is near “love”). The word “great” is surrounded by “percussion,” “horns,” “writing,” “rock,” and “voice.” You see “record,” then “business” and “hell.” There’s “soldiers” next to “lost,” while “Chicago,” “blues,” and “sounds” anchor the middle.

After all these years of me wishing I was “into Tom Waits” for some reason, always wondering what he was building, but never taking the time to listen… he emerges with this fantastic new record that, to my novice ears, sounds like a great sampling of all the things he does best.

Detroit Lions -4 vs. San Francisco 49ers:  I know San Fran hung 48 on Tampa last week, and their record says they’re 4-1. I’m not saying the Niners are frauds, I’m sure they’re pretty good. But SF comes back down to earth a bit this week as QB Alex Smith faces that Detroit D-line and the crazy crowd in the D. Take the Lions -4.

Baltimore Ravens -7 vs. Houston Texans: the Ravens have always been great after the bye week and they take care of business at home. Houston is an okay/good team that gets treated like a contender. But without WR Andre Johnson and now the defense without Mario Williams, I think the Ravens roll easily at home. Take Baltimore -7.

Oakland Raiders -7 vs. Cleveland Browns: this is the week that we confirm that Oakland is pretty good and Cleveland is not. First home game following the death of Al Davis, and a weak opponent, spells a Silver & Black blowout. Take the Raiders -7.

The Obvious Joe Public Square Pick: take the Over in the Cowboys/Patriots game. It’s a high number, 55, but each team shouldn’t have much trouble getting to 30.

Last Week: 4-2
This Season:13-8

Earlier this year, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory, and elsewhere there was some brief hoopla about The Strokes Is This It album turning 10 years old. I loved it at the time and while I don’t think it holds up quite as well as the other albums on this list, it was certainly a touchstone release worthy of the mentions.

Interestingly enough, two albums I most associate with 9/11 for some reason (Radiohead’s Kid A and Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the titles I originally thought would anchor this list), were actually misremembered. They were from 2000 and 2002, respectively. Also, this list is short on hip-hop, but if you check the record books, there were several classics dropped by Outkast, The Roots, Talib Kweli, Eminem, Mos Def, and Common in either 2000 or 2002 (or in some cases both).

On to the list of the Top 10 Albums of 2001:

10. The Strokes – Is This It
Let’s go ahead and include this aforementioned Strokes debut. Mostly since this original banned-in-the-US album cover would look nice here on our website.

9. Explosions in the Sky – Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever
I admit I only recently discovered this band and their fine brand of instrumental rock goodness, and after investigating their back catalog, this is one gem I certainly missed back in 2001.

8. Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
One of their most famous and celebrated albums, the DBT’s “concept album” surrounding the legend of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the deep south is no longer their best. It’s long since been surpassed by their continuing output, but this one put them on the map.

7. Radiohead – Amnesiac
Sometimes overlooked and underrated, this follow-up to 2000′s Kid A album is usually dismissed as simply the second album of Radiohead’s Bleeps’n'Blips Era. Kid B, if you will. But Amnesiac stands on its own as yet another solid entry in the band’s great catalog.

6. Whiskeytown – Pneumonia
Actually recorded in 1999 as a follow-up to Strangers Almanac, this one didn’t see the light of day until 2001 after the band broke up and Ryan Adams released his first solo album. Finished up with producer Ethan Johns, Pneumonia was called “easily Whiskeytown’s most ambitious and eclectic work” by AllMusic.com. A really catchy record that some people might not have caught when it was released.

5. Ryan Adams – Gold
Best-known for the single “New York, New York,” as well as signature tunes like “When the Stars Go Blue” and “The Rescue Blues,” this was a young Ryan Adams swinging for the fences, trying to make the greatest rock mix tape of all time. It falls short of that, and its length causes it to drag in spots, but it still contains some of his best songs.

4. Tool – Lateralus
Certainly one of the greatest hard rock albums ever, and also near the top of the list of great drumming albums of all time. While most people consider its 1996 predecessor Aenima to be the band’s best, 2001′s Lateralus is a worthy follow-up.

3. Jay-Z – The Blueprint
After 5 years and a few solid releases, Jay-Z cemented his legend with The Blueprint, usually mentioned among the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. It not only catapulted Jay-Z to superstar status, it also feature his first few collaborations with new young producer named Kanye West.

2. Bob Dylan – Love and Theft
Pretty amazing that Dylan could make this list 40 years into his career. Love and Theft is the second in what’s known as a trilogy of classic late-career albums by the master.

1. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
An early-career peak for Jack White, the White Stripes third record might be their best. It’s a perfect snapshot representation of what he and Meg did as The White Stripes, stunning in its simplistic immediacy. Raw but catchy blues rock with Jack’s songwriting prowess simmering just below the surface of his smoldering guitar.

Honorable Mentions:
Pete Yorn – musicforthemorningafter, Bjork – Vespertine, Alicia Keys – Songs in A Minor, Old 97′s – Satellite Rides, Muse – Origin of Symmetry, The Shins – Oh, Inverted World, Spoon – Girls Can Tell, Ben Folds – Rockin’ the Suburbs, De La Soul – AOI: Bionix.

Al Davis died again this week, and as cliché as it might seem, I like the Raiders to Just Win Baby against the Texans in Houston. Or at least cover the spread. Oakland has been pretty good, and Houston might be a little overated in this spot (playing at home a week after a high-profile win over the Steelers). Following the death of Davis, it certainly would have been more emotional if it was a home game or if they were playing a division rival. But I don’t think anyone in the sports world would be shocked to see the Raiders play with a little extra emotion and win this game on the road, especially considering that Houston’s All-World WR Andre Johnson is out. Oh by the way, the Texans are giving 6 points. That line is too high, take Oakland +6.

Only a degenerate gambler would consider wagering on the game between the Manning-less Colts and the 1-3 Chiefs. But I think Indianapolis at home, after 4 weeks of practicing how to play without Peyton, they can manage a win over a punchless and weak Kansas City team. Of course, the Colts are still winless, but therein lies the value: it’s only Indy -2 or so, depending where you look. They get the win this week and the easy cover. Bet the Colts.

Here’s another horrible game that you have to bet on just to give it a reason to exist. The Bengals travel to Jacksonville to take on a bad Jaguars team breaking in a rookie QB. Ciny has a rookie QB but he’s been damn good so far and has an explosive fellow rookie at WR. The Jags defense is decent, but the Bengals is better. Mix in the fact that Cincinnati is pretty good and Jackonville just isn’t… yea, the Bengals are gonna win this game, by at least 7 or so. But probably more like 24-13 or even 27-10. This line opened at Jacksonville minus 2 or so and has slowly been moving toward the Bengals. You might have to lay a point, but take Cincinnati.

It’s time for this week’s Joe Obvious Square Public Pick! That’s right, I’m suggesting you bet the OVER in the Philly/Buffalo game. It’s a high total (51.5) but you know both teams have a good chance of hitting 28.

Sunday night, despite all the signs pointing to Aaron Rodgers being unstoppable and the fact that this line opened at GB -4.5 and was bet up to GB -6… and the fact that Atlanta probably isn’t as great as we think they are…. I have a weird feeling the home crowd for the nationally televised Sunday night game and a little playoff payback will push the Falcon over the Packers. And if they fall short? You’re getting 6 points. Take Atlanta plus the points.

Monday night, I like the New Upstart Can You Believe the LIONS of Detroit. First Monday nighter in 10 years, loud dome, dominant pass rush, Jay Cutler and his lack of protection up front, Matthew Stafford to Calvin Johnson. Done. Take Detroit -5. And the Lions defense isn’t great so I imagine this could end up turning into a garbage time pseudo shootout as Cutler, Hester, and Forte score enough to hang around push this one over 47.5 points relatively easily. Bet the Lions-Bears OVER.

Last Week: 2-1
This Season: 9-6-1

This is the best hard rock album of the year.

I wanna rock! Seriously, I really wanna rock, and I know you also enjoy rocking out. To rock, and rock music, is at the core of our being, as most music fanatics were turned on, raised, and possibly brainwashed by Satanic forces to feel the primal attraction of rock music.

This is often best expressed by hard rock and heavy metal. So it was written by Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, and so it has since been done. But most people, probably including you, are pansies like me. We don’t listen to all that crazy death metal and black metal and deathcore and goregrind and whatever other sub-core speed genres of anti-pop horror-metal madness exist out there.

I’ve got a couple of very close friends who are metal freaks. I’m sure you do too. But for pussies like us, we’re okay to just burn out on Them Crooked Vultures and maybe crank some old-school Van Halen in the car and be done with it. Some of you dig on the Foo Fighters cuz their CD’s are so much louder than most of your other ones. You like to name check Queens of the Stone Age, but “No One Knows” that you never actually heard Rated R. You probably dig on the Deftones and Disturbed and possibly some stuff that sounds like Slipknot, but System of a Down was a bit too intense and political. Hopefully you don’t rock out to Linkin Park at the gym. I don’t. But then again, I don’t go to the gym.

Well fear not, rock fans who crave something a little goddamn harder than fucking Wilco or My Morning Jacket but don’t want the bloodbath of Satanic butchery and mass-slaughter imagery infesting your precious earbuds.

Behold The Hunter, the new album from Mastodon.

Certainly not a household name, they’ve never been on Dancing With The Stars or served as guest judges or mentors on any of the other 14,682 talent-show style “reality” shows, Mastodon is one of those crazy talented bands of musicians with the kind of extreme chops that leave many jaws dropped. But, so far, their hard rock/metal has skewed a little proggy, so it was like some Rush-meets-Tool kinda thing with concept albums and 12-minute songs.

This is the deluxe version.

The Hunter is already being received as their “more accessible” album that pisses off the hardcore fan base but attracts the accolades of casual hard rock fans and possibly some non-metal bloggers working on their snarky reaction to the Lou Reed/Metallic collaboration. With apologies to any Mastodonians who feel like their favorite band is “selling out” (impossible these days anyway), The Hunter is perfect for fans of the band who’ve been waiting for them to make an Album Like This, and for people like me who need and want to rock the fuck out and turn it up to 11 but only sometimes.

This album is badass, and yet just catchy enough in its badassery to keep the festivities moving from one crunching riff and sick drum fill to the next. The vocals certainly sound like they hurt somebody’s throat, as well they should, but they are not so in your face or gory to turn off any casual listeners. It just kicks ass. But Mastadon is a different animal: among the mayhem it manages to mix in an obvious “The love I make is equal to the love I take” nod to the Beatles lyric, while “Creature Lives” features an intro that sounds like it’s covering two Pink Floyd intros at the same time.

Strongly rooted in the Black Sabbath basics, Mastodon’s technical proficiency allows them to elevate their stoner rock to high-grade medicinal levels. And it remains concise and hard hitting, certainly recommended if you lean a bit closer to Clutch than Slayer and prefer your Tool albums to have less hot-yoga droning interludes.

So if you crave that metallic taste in your ears without the messy dismemberments and commitments to spend eternity in damnation, pick up Mastodon’s The Hunter and crank that shit up.

People only pay me to put video on the web. I should have tried a hand at dressing people in designer clothes and have them pay me to do it like Rachel Zoe.

With that said, I can’t believe there is a television show that is dedicated to stylist such as Rachel Zoe. Again, I am not discounting Zoe’s profession. There apparently exists a market for people to have their fashion choices made by other people. Mouth agape, who knew? I am getting sidetracked, the episode I watched last night centered around Zoe’s work with actress Anne Hathaway. Hathaway was to host the Academy awards and it was Zoe’s task to provide her with multiple outfits because God knows that one should never host the Oscars without multiple wardrobe changes.

During the episode much of the teleplay led up to the big night with the show’s climax of Zoe and her team gathered together to watch the Academy Awards broadcast so that they could all congratulate each other, and most importantly Zoe, on just how great Hathaway looked in other people’s clothes. All in all it seems like a job well done. Hathaway certainly looked stunning in each of the outfits picked by Zoe and her team.  However, I think Anne would look great wearing little to nothing at all.  Don’t believe me? Maybe you should watch this sometime.

The real rub…

The real rub is with one of the comments one of Zoe’s team members, the fabulous Joey Maalouf.  Near the end of the program Maalouf claimed that Zoe’s work with Hathaway for that splendid evening ‘was epic.’  Wait, what? Dressing a person in someone else’s clothes is epic? Joey, let me hop on a high horse here and say that perhaps it is the case that you need to take a minute and google up a definition of ‘epic.’  I have a distinct feeling that selecting someone’s fashion is far from ‘epic.’

Is your google machine not working?  Let me help you.

Epic:

The Iliad by Homer, it's a poem and it is EPIC as shit.

Not so epic:

Playing dress up is not 'Epic.' No seriously, it's not.

Any Questions?