You Were Right When You Said "We Can't Always Get What We Want"

So it's been a rather interesting time in the world of Bubastis. Election night was quite a roller coaster: I went from being extremely proud on a national level to flat out disgusted on a state level in a matter of hours. I won't bore anyone with any long rant about the evils of Prop 8...suffice it to say that we fucked up but it's ok because it's going to happen sooner or later. Get used to it, Mormons!

But let's get one thing straight: Doctor Bubastis loves the 'tang. I just hate to see something like this proposed and passed on such a religious level in a “progressive” state like California. I also hate arguments like “it has nothing to do with bigotry!” Bitch please. You're flipping out about gay marriage POSSIBLY being taught in school. Nothing says tolerance like “I just don't want my kids to be taught that this lifestyle is acceptable.” I also dislike the insinuation amidst all of this that a child being raised by a gay couple is somehow dysfunctional or not-as-good. Listen, these people have to work to get their kids. Just because you got knocked up in the back of your boyfriends I-Roc drunk as shit off of boxed wine with a mix tape consisting solely of “Pour Some Sugar On Me” playing on the tape deck doesn't make you a good parent.

Nate Silver, who I was previously familiar with through his terrific work with the holy grail of Baseball nerddom, Baseball Prospecticus, runs a highly accredited polling website called fivethirtyeight.com. He recently did a piece about Prop 8, saying that statistically speaking if no one over the age of 60 voted on the measure, it wouldn't have passed. Interesting. Listen, i'm glad we still have the old folks who think it's ok to call black people “colored” puttering around, and i'm not exactly insisting that they just die already, but apparently we have to add “voting” to the long list of things that they shouldn't be allowed to do, along with driving and going to the movies (have you ever been to a theater full of old people? They talk louder and more frequently than the most annoying of teenage girls.)

Anyway, enough of this shit. Check this. The other day I was invited by a friend of mine to go see The Faint. THE FAINT! Seriously? Who would do that to themselves? Do I look like a 14 year old girl? I actually saw the Faint once, like 4 or 5 years ago. But I was only there because for some unholy reason Les Savy Fav opened for them. Ugh. I still haven't washed all the gay off. Not only did I have to deal with the entire white belt army, but they were all....dancing. Like jackasses, obviously. Speaking of Les Savy Fav, this video for their song “What Would Wolves Do?” is really cool. There's just something I like about a wolf and bear astronaut duo partying pretty hard with a bunch of robot fish harpies.

Oh and I almost got in a fight the other night at Churchill's. Like, an honest-to-god fistfight. Fisticuffs and all. All because I told some dude that I didn't like Rage Against The Machine and thought all of their political stuff was weak ass marketing/pandering. Funny, so many people loved the band so much and bought all the fucking Che shirts, but did they give a shit about Zach de la Rocha after he left the band? Didn't think so. If I wanted to listen to Rage Against the Machine I would just listen to Relationship of Command and swap the asinine, cliché political jargon for cryptic, none-of-this-shit-makes-any-sense political jargon. Apparently Rage fans are just as delusional as Tool fans. Makes sense, considering they're probably the same people. Don't even get me started on how hard P.O.D. Rules!

Onto “Music That Doesn't Suck” news, I missed Ghastly City Sleep in L.A. Last weekend. Not that I didn't want to go and support them, considering just getting the tour off the ground was a huge undertaking, but I didn't have the money myself. Being a cartoonish, Vaudevillian villain doesn't pay as well as you may think.

And as the year winds down you eventually start to think about your favorite whatevers of the year. Albums, movies, whatever. And I hate to be the guy who says this, because I usually hate this guy, but there just hasn't been a whole lot of music in 2008 that got me really psyched. Any suggestions?

Oh and i'm looking for someone to go see Synecdoche, New York with me in Hillcrest sometime soon. No one I know wants to go see a long ass, probably boring but ultimately great Charlie Kaufman movie.

P.S. After all this time I think I've come to a shocking conclusion: I think my favorite Built to Spill record is in fact Keep It Like A Secret. Not Perfect From Now On. Fuck off, people who think Perfect is better.

GDB

I Feel Like the Mother of the World

I watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for the first time last night. I was super excited for it to come out, but I was out of the country when it was released and by the time I came home all the hype had kind of died and I never got around to seeing it. Even with my extremely lowered "As long as it's better than Temple of Doom i'll be fine with it" expectations, I was still disappointed. I wish someone would just fucking kill George Lucas already. Doctor Bubastis is officially calling for that man's head. I don't care that you ruined Star Wars because to be honest I never gave a fuck about Star Wars, but fuck you for fucking with Indy. How can someone with so many chins be so stupid? I swear to god he's got a whole loaf of bread lodged in his throat.

Anyway, the past couple of days i've been busy planning my ultimate escape from San Diego. Why do people call this shit heap paradise? Yeah, walking out of work at 10am into 95 degree heat in October is super fucking awesome. I had to show a good friend of mine around the city last weekend, and I realized how boring this place really is. Don't even get me started on the sorry ass state of our music venues. This bitch originally comes from Florida, America's asshole, and even she wasn't impressed. I'm open to any moving suggestion. Right now i'm thinking of Portland, Vancouver, Oakland, Baltimore or Nashville.

Well, since i'm still fucking here, there's a few shows on my radar for the next few weeks:

Mountain Goats with Kaki King at the Belly Up on the 28th. You should probably go to this if you're 21+. If you're not, you probably listen to shitty music anyway.

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists with Titus Andronicus at the Casbah on the 30th. I've seen Ted Leo a few times, but i'm iffy on this one because his new album sucks...except for the Sons of Cain, which fucking brings it. Titus Andronicus is pretty cool, so I may go. If you dig upbeat or noisy as fuck rock check it out. That is, if you're not too busy taking it up the ass at the Thrice and Alkaline Trio show that same night. FUCK, IT'S LIKE, INDIE ROCK, WITH SICK METAL LEADS.

Later shows include Subtle at the Casbah on Nov. 30th, which everyone should go to because Subtle is ridiculous and awesome and put on a great show.

And, naturally, Wu-Tang Dec. 5th at the House of Blues.

All of these shows are 21+. So...if you're not 21, you're shit out of luck. I'm sure some super shitty bands are playing at the Epicentre that night so you and your 15 year old dick pig friends can like, swipe your dads vodka and totally lose your shit.

Bring the Motha' Fuckin' Ruckus
gdb

Irish Folk Tales Scare The Shit Out Of Me

While the rest of the Pony Girl Staff have been out partying all night and making the world Dirty enough for all of us, i've been locked up in my parlor, festering in my ratty old Converge sweatshirt, drinking a lot of cheap beer and bumming out to late Pavement and Will Oldham.

Certain things make me feel old and kind of bum me out. Seeing shows like Space Ghost or Mystery Science Theater 3000 on TV makes me feel old. Seeing Rushmore on Comedy Central and remembering when I was 13 and saw it in theaters makes me feel old. Seeing Bill Murry makes me feel old. Going to shows that aren't 21+ makes me feel old. Pavement's last two albums, Terror Twilight in particular, really make me feel old.

“Architecture students are like virgins/with an itch they cannot scratch/never build a building 'til you're 50/what kind of life is that?”

- “The Hexx.”

Why does Terror Twilight bum me out so much? It doesn't bum me out in that “great band passed it's prime trying desperately to stay relevant” kind of way. It bums me out in a broader, more existential kind of way. Because I think without Pavement, most of the kids who came of age in the 1990s probably would've killed themselves. You can quote me on that. Think about it, if Pavement isn't the band that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy thinking back on your otherwise shitty childhood, it's probably Weezer, and we all know Weezer is just Pavement without all the talent and a serious case of yellow fever. Hell, Pavement still has a strangle-hold on the #1 indie-rock-influence title, so unless you're older than thirty or younger than fifteen, Pavement has had a lot of influence on the way you look at music, whether you know it or not.

But my point is, fuck bands like Nirvana and the Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots. Did the world need any more bumming out? Sure, hair-metal was a ridiculous craze, but that doesn't mean that popular music needed to shift into the eternally stoned depression that those assholes helped create. What's wrong with having a little fun? Why can't you be eternally stoned and fucking loving it? I think Bart Simpson (or was it Lisa?) said it best; “Making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel.” Pavement was the antidote to all this bullshit. They were the pinnacle of cultural irreverence. Stephen Malkmus could've been the voice of an entire generation, instead he's just the voice of twenty-something disgruntled hipsters. What held them back was the exact thing that should've been their biggest selling point: they were just as bored and lazy and apathetic as you were, but they didn't suck at the guitar. But when it comes down to it, kids didn't want a band just like them. They wanted more straight-forward song structures. Less abstract lyrics. A singer with a cleaner voice and more choruses. In short, they wanted Weezer. It took a Harvard education to figure out that stoner kids didn't want a stoner band, they wanted a clean-cut band that could appeal to stoners. Either way, kids had their “feel good” band that made them want to go skateboarding with their friends instead of hang themselves by their ceiling fans, and the world was a better place because of it. I guess that's why i'll never fault Weezer for essentially being Pavement-lite—because in my book they were both forces for good.

Wait, back to my real point. Why does Terror Twilight do the very thing i've just canonized Pavement for NEVER doing?

I guess mainly because it's where Pavement really starts to act its age. The songs are tighter, quieter, more focused. It essentially sounds like a Malkmus solo album. I guess the threat of Y2K and a cultural apocalypse was enough to make even the Malk man re-evaluate where he fits in the grand scheme of things. But I wanted Pavement to be the band that laughed at all that shit. Say “fuck off” to the hyper-paranoid pack rats and just keep doing what they had been doing. But I guess they reached a breaking point. Their “Terror Twilight” if you will. Was Stephen Malkmus aging? Was he ready to accept the graying hair the aching back and his new role as respected Elder Statesmen of indie rock? I guess so. I guess that's better and more respectable than becoming a crazy ass recluse like Jeff Mangum. At what point do we all just need to grow the fuck up?

But, you know, there's always the looking back. I can still listen to Crooked Rain Crooked Rain and dive back into immaturity, if only for 45 minutes or so. Gold Soundz sums it up better than I ever could, with my favorite Pavement lyric ever:

“So drunk
in the August sun,
and you're the kind of girl I like.
Because you're empty,
and i'm empty,
and you can never quarantine the past.”

For a double-shot of self-loathing, how about a clip of Pavement ON Space Ghost? I remember seeing this episode of Space Ghost when I was like 14 or whatever. Fuck I loved Space Ghost.

I remember after Malkmus “dissed” the Smashing Pumpkins in the song "Range Life," song, Billy Corgan responded with an eerily prophetic message: “People don’t fall in love to Pavement… they put on Smashing Pumpkins or Hole or Nirvana, because these bands actually mean something to them.”

Sure thing Billy.

GDB

Dr. Bubastis' Finite Playlist

First off--my well of Ponygirl Club contributions has been running a tad dry of late, leaving my fellow Bloggers gasping for air like rainbow trout marooned on a parched riverbed after a long summer's drought. For that I apologize. Depending on who you ask, I have spent the last several weeks either:

a) Held up in a villa somewhere in the Balkans riding horses and playing the accordion.
b) Learning to fire breathe.
c) following the Silver Jews on tour and stalking Cassie Berman.

While all or none of these may be true, none of this qualifies as a reason to neglect my blogging duties. I guess part of the problem is I haven't had anything to bitch about lately, and what is the point of blogging if you're not going to bitch?

So, in the spirit of trying to get through this blog with as little shit talking as possible, i'm going to fire up the ole' shuffle on my Ipod, and talk about the first ten songs/bands that come up. I promise I won't cheat to look cool.

1. Neko Case- "Hold On, Hold On"
I like Neko Case. She has a good voice and she's pretty foxy, but man, if it's possible to scream "I'm a total bitch" with no more than a few pictures, Ms. Case has it perfected. She's also in the "indie rock supergroup" The New Pornographers along with Dan Bejar of Destroyer fame. Personally, I like Case and I like Bejar but the New Pornos pretty much suck. It's just run of the mill power pop crap mixed with a few gems from one of these two. Anyway, I have no doubt in my mind that if Neko Case wanted to become a big Country superstar she totally could. People wouldn't even have to write songs for her! But then again, "country," or at least it's popular incarnation, has really become a pretty hideous swamp thing of a genre in the last decade or so.

2. Bear vs. Shark- "Baraga Embankment"
Fuck yeah. I've always loved BVS. People ask me to describe them, and the best I can come up with is "If At The Drive-In were a bunch of white dudes instead of a bunch of Mexican dudes and there was no Acid involved." Seems fair to me. Anyway, these dudes rocked and it's a pretty big bummer that they broke up. Check out this video for "Catamaran" off of their last album "Terrorhawk." It's the opening track, and a pretty kick ass one at that.



3. The Microphones- "I Felt My Size"
If this were like four years ago you would've been witness to me raving about how much I love this album, "The Glow, Pt. 2." But, well, it's just not something i'm really ever going to throw on anymore. Phil Elvrum has always had a pretty good thing going for him...he's super earthy and organic and shit and it comes through in his music, which is super bare-bones and folksey and woodsy. I dunno, maybe i'd like it more if I lived in like, Washington. It's the kind of album which, despite it's quality and how much I loved it at one point or another, I just don't really have much use for anymore. Kind of like Spiderland.

4. A Silver Mt. Zion- "Track 01"
Another band I used to like a lot more than I do now. Make no mistake...I was a huuuuge Godspeed You! Black Emperor fan back in the day. They played at the Casbah once but I wasn't old enough to go, then they broke up and I never got to see them live. So, therefore, I had to kind of hold out for a time when they would either get back together, or I was going to have to live with just seeing Silver Mt. Zion live. I did. It was boring. There were a ton of childhood emotions and expectations riding on that show...I wanted them to be a band they weren't. But, you know, that show made me realize that, as necessary as the breakup of GYBE seemed to be at the time, ASMZ just can't compete. At all. Efrim can't sing. He isn't a band leader. He was never supposed to be any of those things. These weren't people who spoke out about politics or or talked shit about other bands. They were supposed to be different. But, whatever. The death of Godspeed, to me, meant that post-rock was done and dead and people needed to move on. Too bad no one else did.

5. Modest Mouse- "Jesus Christ Was An Only Child."
Modest Mouse is one of those unfortunate bands that got popular at the wrong time. They got popular after they were done writing terrific music and, well, that just meant that their back-catalog would never be appreciated by certain people. It's like the Weezer effect...once you become popular and start writing crappy music, a whole new, young generation of "indie" kids will know who you are, but in a way that just means they aren't old enough to remember that you were good once and won't care. "Oh, yeah, Modest Mouse fucking sucks." Yeah? Listen to The Lonesome Crowded West and fucking tell me that. Damn these guys used to be good. Not that their new albums are terrible....they're not...but really, they're never going to even come close to their three big early albums. Oh, and Issac Brock's lisp is fucking annoying. I should do a piece about musicians with lisps. Who else has one besides him and that fruit from Belle & Sebastian?

6. Hot Snakes- "Let It Come"
Ah, the Reis/Froberg tandem, aka the best thing to ever happen to San Diego music. I seriously love these dudes. Sure i'm not as big on the whole greaser-punk vibe of Rocket From The Crypt, but I think it has to do more with me really like Rick Froberg's voice. Drive Like Jehu is one of my all time favorite bands, and while Hot Snakes decided to shed a lot of the more experimental and mathy aspects of Jehu's last album, they still know how to fucking rock. Drive Like Jehu is a perfect example of bands that existed at the same time as Nirvana, did a similar thing, and kicked infinitely more ass yet get little to no credit for it. God, I fucking hate Nirvana. Sweet, it's the Meat Puppets without anything that made the Meat Puppets interesting! Where do I sign up?

I don't know what the fuck is going on in this video but I kind of like it:


7. The Aquabats- Dear Spike
People who do not like the Aquabats are the enemy of fun. Now is a fitting time to listen to them, too, as Travis Barker is like, dead or something. Yes, it is a little known fact that Travis Barker used to be in the Aquabats, where he went by the name The Baron Von Tito. They probably kicked him out for not being Mormon?

It's definitely kind of sad that they're still a band. But, you know what? Who cares. Let them keep on rocking until Jesus comes back to earth or whatever!



8. You know what? There is no #8. I'm tired of this.

GDB

It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Blurst of Times?!?!

A band like The Airborne Toxic Event just kind of rubs me the wrong way. I had become vaguely familiar with them in the past several months—that is to say more “aware of” than “familiar with”—and they're just one of those bands that you get an immediate, admittedly unfounded dislike for. I'm sure it's happened to all of you: you hear some hype about a band, see ads for their super-hip new album plastered around websites, hear a little more hype...and next thing you know, without any particular reason, you now officially have some kind of bias against them. I found myself wondering if this band would become the next big, over-hyped, mediocre indie darling. You know, the music equivalent to Little Miss Sunshine or Juno. And since the real key to becoming the cute little indie sleeper of the year is apparently paralyzing mediocrity, i'm sure they'll fit right in.

My initial reaction to having finally listened to their music/watched a few youtube videos, was that they were some sort of fat-cat concoction to bank off the growing success and popularity of “indie” bands. You know, because these days all the 17 year old kids who would've been jocks or at most skaters when I was in high school now wear skinny jeans, white belts and listen to Circa Survive.

Seriously, this band just screams of “genetically engineered to appeal to as many demographics as possible.” I mean, let's face it, they've got a pretty solid recipe for success:

-Band name ripped from a popular “lit kid” novel. Sure, I like White Noise as much as the next guy, but to rep Delillo in front of a lit major—or even worse a big post-modern douche bag—is like trying to impress a bunch of Jazz assholes by namedropping John Coltrane. No go hoss.

-Fender Jaguars. And lots of them! (board room meeting: “They all need top of the line Fender Stratocasters!” “Those aren't 'hip' anymore.” “Well then, what is?”) Jazzmasters might be harder to recognize and Mustangs are a little folksy. The Jaguar is a solid choice.

-THE BASSIST PLAYS WITH A BOW. Why? To meet their daily fag quotient? Who knows. But it's a sure fire way to get the lowest-common-denominator post-rock crowd. OMG I LOVE SIGUR ROS.

-Cute girl. If you're going to Frankenstein a successful indie band, you need at least one cute chick with bangs that could slice bread. Let me guess, she plays the violin? Naturally! What else can girls play, the harp?

-They're sure to take lots of pictures of themselves playing with a lot of fog under neon lights. You know, because it's moody and brooding. And shit. It kind of calls to mind My Bloody Valentine. Is there still a big shoe-gaze fan base? Tap that shit, too!

-lyrics lyrics lyrics!! The more cliche and banal, the better! "she walks up and asks how you are/so you can smell her perfume/you can see her lying naked in your arms." Sounds like something straight out of Delillo!

So, the above ranting was all really just me spit-balling about the elements some record exec wanted to see in the next big indie band. I'm probably way off base, right? Turns out, this wasn't some record label's master plan, it was just plain old, human egotism and pandering.

So, this guy, the lead singer. He was writing a novel. I'm sure it was terrific. I'm sure it's main influence was Catcher In The Rye. Wait, no, this is a hardcore lit kid! It was probably Gravity's Rainbow or Infinite Jest! Anyway, that's not the point. He was writing the Great American Novel, but then, his girlfriend broke his heart, his mom was diagnosed with cancer, and he got that disease that Why? named an album after and that dude from The Darjeeling Limited had. So he decided to put his shoe-in for the PEN/Faulkner award off for a while to get everything off his chest in song form. Sound familiar? Vaguely.

Anyway, if this dude's lyrics suck this much, I can't even imagine what his novel was like. He's like that kid in your creative writing class who says he's working on a novel even though he's never written a short story in his life and is pretty much retarded.

"Sorry, I really lost my head
I'm sorry, I really lost my head.
But you know those words that you said
They get stuck here in my head
And this feeling I dread, makes me wish I was dead
Or just alone instead, i'll be alone instead.
I don't need anyone in my bed
Just these ceiling tiles falling through my head."

Fuck dude, forget prose, I think poetry is your thing. It's like we just unearthed the long-lost fourth Bronte sister.

But then again, this guy likes Don Delillo and plays a Jag. Shouldn't I be eating this shit up?

I'm sure their CD has one of those "For Fans Of..." stickers on it. God, I hate those things. The last band on the sticker is always Converge too, as if Converge were the single most unifying and universally appealing band in the last twenty years.

This band is the culmination of the idea that if "you like A and B, then you'll love C!" And I hate that.

endnote: in my research for this post (yes, I do research!) I went to their website and found that they had written a novel-length "response" to Pitchfork's review of their album. Apparently they hate this band as much (or more?) than I do. Anyway, they go well out of their way to say they don't care what reviews say, and that every other review says their album is one of the best of the year! After which they proudly display a feature in NME, which is like a commercial saying that John McCain approves this message.

I need a video to wash all this suck off of me. How about Bill Callahan's serene video for "I Feel Like The Mother Of The World?"



This band is the musical equivalent to a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters writing the Great American Novel.

gdb

I'll Make Love To You (Like You Want Me To)

So a couple of amigos of mine went up to mother fuckin' LA last night to see Mogwai at the Wiltern. They asked me to go but I said no because Mogwai sucks. The Wiltren is a pretty nice place though—except it's a little big and the tickets are a little pricey and the beer is fucking extortion. I saw the Mars Volta there back in 2004—which if you're keeping track is just before they entered their all-consuming black hole of suck.

Anyway, thinking about Mogwai got me thinking about post-rock. Why do people still like it? I mean, sure, it was pretty cool back when it was pretty new and different and like “totally out there," but that shit got so stale so quick. I think I blame those turd merchants in Explosions In The Sky. They're pretty much the Vanilla Ice of post-rock. Which is pretty tough to do because there's a TON of shitty post-rock out there. Like, a ton. Mainly because it's taught a whole new generation of assholes that they don't need to worry about being able to play the guitar anymore—they can just play a few notes and then fuck with pedals. Sweet! Oh and it eliminates the need for a singer, because I think we all know the hardest thing to find in a high school band is someone who doesn't totally blow at singing. Well, drummers used to be hard to find too, don't know if they still are, mainly because i'm not in high school anymore.

Back to the point: I fucking hate Explosions In The Sky. Like, great, you make music that sounds like a reverb pedal and a splash cymbal thrown into a blender and set to pussy. I swear to god they only have two songs: that one with all the reverb that eventually crescendos and the one with all that reverb that doesn't eventually crescendo. Want to know how they decided to mix it up for their newest release, “All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone"? They added piano. YEAH, PIANO. Fuck. What, did you guys suddenly realize in the middle of one of your ballroom dance competitions that piano is totally sweet? I'd rather listen to Cradle of Filth's cover of "Hallowed Be Thy Name." “All Of A Sudden I Miss Godspeed You! Black Emperor" is more like it.

This music, to me, just sounds like it was all made with a montage of “main character dealing with hard times” in mind. It's just so fucking vacant to me. It's about as real and emotional as a greeting card or Al Gore. But of course it's sappy and “pretty” and “dreamy” or whatever. Which just means they're going to be the official wedding reception soundtrack for every single scenester wedding for the next 15 years. Congratulations, you're Boyz II Men for the white belt crowd.

And I also hear they're notorious for pussing out on shows all the time—like either canceling or calling it quits after like 15 minutes because “they're tired." Seriously? What, is having to man more than one Line-6 DD4 and a Holy Grail at the same time too much work for you? Are you guys late for a knitting class? Or do you just really miss your fucking girlfriends? Ugh. Maybe they just figure that after more than two songs everyone in the audience will realize that they only have two songs and get pissed. But then again their fans are like 16 and stupid as fuck. They're the same 16 year olds that think the Blood Brothers rule. Does not fucking compute.

But this all comes back to Mogwai. I don't hate Mogwai like I hate Explosions In The Sky. They've been around and they seem like hard-asses. Plus their music isn't bad, it just doesn't do anything for me. “Mogwai fear Satan” is a pretty good song.

gdb

Maybe It Was The Right Grave...Maybe Not.

Back in 2003, most of my time on the internet was spent between watching porn (pterodactyl porn, that is) and trying desperately to find a left-handed Fender Jaguar. But in between all that excitement I somehow managed to find some unimportant, unassuming little music blog where some unimportant, unassuming dude who probably had a beard posted a big play list along with an MP3 and paragraph or so about each song. I didn't listen to all of them. Even at 18 I was a busy man. But one caught my eye: "No Children" by a band called The Mountain Goats, whom I had never heard. The song was from their newest release, 2002's underrated Tallahassee, and all it took was one listen: I was hooked. I was at the mercy of a band called the Mountain Goats.

Welcome to the world of John Darnielle, who since the early 90s has been churning out at a rather alarming rate some of the best nuggets of writing you'll ever find from a musician. Whether he's writing about a teenage death metal band from Denton, Texas, a guy who spends his life-savings on flowers and mobiles, H.P. Lovecraft's xenophobic nightmares in New York, or a truly beautiful account of what went through his mind when he find out that the man who made his childhood a living hell died of a heart attack, the most important thing to realize about John Darnielle's lyrics is that he writes like a writer, not like a musician trying to be a writer. The point of the song is always underlying, with the real power coming from the minute details he bestows upon his characters that elevate them beyond the simplistic, melodramatic stick figures you see in most songwriting. John Darnielle does not write for the girl that is looking for the one quotable phrase which really sums up how she feels about life that she can get tattooed below her left breast. John Darnielle is barely even quotable. Setting and lush characterization don't make for quotable songs. But then again, he also rules at writing ANGRY! lyrics. From the song "Baboon" off of The Coroner's Gambit:

"Daisies on the hillside like cancer on the skin,
pretty little yellow eyes that flutter in the wind,
I'd be grateful that my children weren't here to see this
if you ever saw fit to give me children.
And my defenses may be working with a skeleton crew
but i'll be skinned alive before I take this from you."

More than 20 albums and 250 songs later (with plenty of back-catalog that I don't have), I am still frequently amazed at the level of detail Darnielle displays around every corner. Believe it or not, up until 2005's terrific The Sunset Tree, he had never written a song about himself. In 14 years of purely fictional songwriting, Darnielle accomplished more real, honest emotion that a lesser writer (read: pretty much any musician) could ever hope to if given a lifetime heart-on-my-sleeve-and-I-cry-on-stage shit. But in recent years, Darnielle has turned his borderline anal-retentive attention to detail inwards, and produced two deeply personal albums; The Sunset Tree, which focuses on his childhood and abusive stepfather, and Get Lonely, which finds Darnielle for the very first time singing about his own heartbreak. But, true to form, Darnielle avoids the cliched pitfalls of this type of writing and instead hons in on the day to day minutia involved in getting back on track. From the song "Woke Up New"; "The first time I made coffee for just myself/I made too much of it/but i drank it all/because I know you hate/when i let things go to waste." Using the term "literary" when referring to lyrics is usually pretty trivial and a sure-fire way to make you look like a jackass, but I think the term fits here. John Darnielle embodies what it means for lyrics to be literary. A favorite of mine is his "Going to..." series of songs, which each find our narrator at some location, be it Georgia or Bolivia, dealing with issue of post-adolescent wander lust and feelings of displacement in the world.

Until 2002's Tallahassee, Darnielle stuck to pretty militant lo-fi standards, going so far as to have recorded all of his previous albums on an old Casio boom box. Yeah, he doesn't fuck around. But during the recording of All Hail West Texas the hiss of the boom box became a drawl, and it's days were numbered, destined to be left behind in some lonely West Texas desert. But to replace the old-friend, John hired a full-time bassist, went into a real studio, and even started using drums every once in a while.

One thing I like so much about John Darnielle is his ability to balance aspects of his music that seem to be in total opposition to one another. His early lo-fi, "slapped together" recording mantra seemed counter-intuitive to his highly thought out, fauned over lyrics. His nasal voice is there to counteract the mundane nature of his lyrics, forcing the listener to pay attention to him in way that stands in place of "instantly quotable" lyrics. His "dime a dozen" guitar talent stands in stark contrast to his ability as a writer. And even complete tonal discrepancies in songs; such as the jaded, angry lyrics of "No Children" set against the peppy, jaunty piano track, or the sugary-sweet guitar work in "Tianchi Lake" that masks the fact that the song is about a sea-monster with a horse head and sea lion body killing a bunch of kids at the beach ("No one's taking pictures--everybody's dead".) I love it.


So anyway, this is just sort of a haphazard, head-cold induced tribute to a guy I like a ton. Here, he even has a guest spot on Aesop Rock's new CD, and surprise surprise his lyrics are terrific:



I'd start with something from the studio-albums, like maybe The Sunset Tree. His new one, Heretic Pride, is really good as well. If you're feeling crazy and want to jump into his boom box albums, maybe start with Full Force Galesburg or All Hail West Texas or New Asian Cinema or Devil In The Shortwave or Ghana or Nine Black Poppies. Fuck it, just get anything you can find.

Just be careful, The Mountain Goats are one of those bands that you can really get absorbed by. You know, like AFI or Tool, minus the truck-load of gay.

The GDB

They're Still A Band?

There comes a point in every music lover's lifetime when a band reaches a certain point of irrelevancy—that is to say, every now and then you say to yourself “I officially don't give a shit about this band anymore” and go on with your life. Time passes; you listen to new music, gain a little weight, stop thinking Donnie Darko is a good movie...hell, you might even get laid once or twice. But then something happens. The very same forces that have kept any and all information about this band that you “don't give a shit about anymore” from you have conspired to bring you your first news of this band in almost a decade. It's shocking for several reasons. First it makes you think about the last time you had actually heard anyone talk about this band, which in turns make you feel old as fuck. Then, the ultimate question beckons:

Fuck, they're still a band?

Welcome to your favorite new PGC feature, wherein I will discuss bands that have faded so far from relevancy that they've drunkenly meandered into Metallica territory. First up on the chopping block: RANCID. So hop in my DeLorean and buckle up...we're about to go back to the motherfucking 90s.

Dial 9-9-9 If You Really Want Rancid to Stop Making Music

No joke: up until last week I thought Rancid's 2000 self-titled album was the last thing they released. How was I to know? Tim Armstrong started that awful rap rock band with the Baron Von Tito, and Lars Frederiksen sold suck by the gallon in Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards. Tough name dude. I actually saw Lars and the Bastards open for the Nerve Agents way back in 2001 or 2002 and even then dude was looking pretty fucking old and haggard. I'm pretty sure he was wearing some kind of back-brace too. Bitch looked like Bob Barker minus the tangerine tan and hot chicks.

So anyway, most people around my age that actually listened to cool music before Myspace and shit should remember that Rancid was fucking everywhere back in the day. And if you didn't have some huge ass rancid patch on your Jansport backpack i'll bet some serious dough that it was an Operation Ivy one. Fuck, even at 15 I knew Op Ivy sucked big time, but that shirt was EVERYWHERE. You couldn't ignore it. It's like those kids today that run around wearing that fucking Misfits shirt even though they've never listened to the Misfits, or even worse have only listened to the post-Danzig Misfits. But anyway, i'm not going to front—every now and then it's still fun to get drunk as hell and bust out Let's Go for some serious crust Karaoke. Then again this is coming from a guy who's ultimate Karaoke album is Taking Back Sunday's Tell All Your Friends. It's just that when I heard that Rancid is still around and making music, I just couldn't help but wonder why. Who still listens to this stuff? Did they build a huge mainstream following after that time they played Ruby Soho on SNL, motherfucking Liberty Spikes and all? Seriously, I haven't seen someone rocking a Rancid t-shirt or ass patch or whatever since way back in like 1999 when I still thought Lagwagon was cool. There must be some underground sewer community of twenty-somethings with a serious case of arrested development rocking their Dead Kennedy's studded jackets and grooming their Devil Locks that are keeping bands like Rancid and Anti-Flag in business. On their parents credit cards, i'm sure. Punk fucking rock.

So in doing research for this post I found out that Rancid went on “hiatus” from 2004-2005. That's news to me and probably everyone else in the world not in Rancid. Seriously dudes, didn't you get the memo? Hiatus means you're breaking up. Aren't At The Drive In still on “hiatus”? You know they're not getting back together because most of them are way too busy dropping acid and making shitty music. So seriously, hiatus = DEAD. What'd you do for that year anyway? Did it take doctors that long to figure out what kind of herpes Tim got from that hyper-skank from the Distillers that he was married to? Seriously that bitch sounds like she's been choking on dicks made of brillo pads most of her life and somehow looks even worse. And I guess now that they're officially off hiatus (thank the lord!) their original drummer left and was replaced by, get this, the drummer for THE USED. Do you remember those turd burglars? Me neither. Fuck dudes, was the guy from Finch not available? Drummer for From Autumn to Ashes turn you down? Bottom of the barrel dudes....big time.

In summation, there's way too much new shitty music in this world for us to have to deal with shitty music from 1995 that just won't go the fuck away. On the unbelievably rare occasions that I feel like listening to Rancid (and i'm talking Terrence-Malick-making-a-new-movie rare), about three songs of And Out Come The Wolves will totally tide me over for the next half-dozen years or so. I sure as fuck won't be reaching for anything they've made in the 21^st century.

Next you're going to tell me The Vandals are still around.

Wait, what? They are?

I have a lot of work to do. Fuck.

-Dr. B

Richmond Is A Hole

Let's get real for a minute. I don't know shit about Virginia. For all I know the entire state is some sick mixture of super-rich assholes, inbred Appalachian weirdos, and Quakers. But whatever the social climate is over there, one thing is for sure: they can rock.

(quick disclaimer: if you're reading this from Virginia and want to correct me on my Virginia history—don't bother, because I don't care.)

So way back in like '98 this band called Pg.99 started up and they were brutal as fuck. What started as a less-than-impressive six piece punk outfit eventually ballooned into a 16 piece full-force punk rock hydra that knew how to fuck shit up. They were all about ridiculous “punk rock” spoken word manifestos and song names like “Your Face Is A Rape Scene”.

Anyway, this isn't about Pg.99. They were punk as fuck and more than a little ridiculous and they broke up and that's where the story begins. When you have 14 dudes in your band and your band breaks up, new bands are going to spew forth like maggots generating from rotten meat. And that's exactly what happened.

Let's talk first about the most important band that rose from the carcass of Pg.99: City of Caterpillar. As far as i'm concerned these guys redefined heavy music. Their big thing was taking heavy as shit moments not too far removed from, say, Pg.99 or Orchid, and mixing them with long instrumental passages not dissimilar to something like Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Needless to say shit like this totally blew my mind way back in 2002 when everyone else was going apeshit over that stupid Thursday album Full Collpase and fucking Poison The Well. Ugh I remember the first year of that Plea for Peace tour when I paid up to watch Cursive play for 15 minutes and then had to sit through both of these bands and practically OD'd on douche fumes.

Anyway, as great as City of Caterpillar is/was, they aren't the main focus of this post either. Long story short, they released one fantastic album, an equally fantastic EP and then broke up....just like every good hardcore band does (not counting Planes Mistaken For Stars, who rather than break up just decided that they were tired of whining about how no girls will love them and figured they might as well grow their hair out, start drinking whiskey and put on a serious bearded-tough-guy act. Yeah assholes, I remember when you were on Deep Elm even if you don't.) I call it the “Level Plane Curse.” So CoC was gone—leaving nothing behind save one unreleased song, some great live videos and a whole bunch of sad dudes with beards (or handlebar mustaches.)

(Check out City of Caterpillar on Youtube and watch the video of "Driving Spain Up a Wall" to witness their final, unrecorded song and see what the world is totally missing out on.)

[Editor's Note: Here's the video, dudes:]

The death of City of Caterpillar in 2004 takes us closer to the present day, as a lot of the bands that emerged from this hollow cocoon are still around as glorious butterflies (get it? caterpillar....butterfly??) First we have Malady, which ditched the post-rock and added a slight grunge aspect. Yeah, I know, grunge sucks, but these guys didn't. They released one pretty good album and broke up (what's with these dudes?) So now, in 2008, we are left with two bands formed and fronted by ex members of the City of Caterpillar/Pg.99 brain trust: Verse En Coma and Ghastly City Sleep.

Let's get Ghastly out of the way because even they're not the subject of this post either: they're good. Their self-titled debut just came out a little while ago on Robotic Empire and you should pick it up. A lot of the instrumentation is mellow and borderline ambient, and the vocals are hushed and serene. The whole album has a glacial, ethereal quality that I find very soothing. No grindcore breakdowns here folks!

So anyway, on to the album I really wanted to talk about: Verse En Coma and their debut EP Rialto. All the way back in fucking 2006 these dudes posted an unmixed, untitled demo, and just now, IN 2008, we have a finished EP. Five songs over two years, nice job fellas. Anyway, since that first song I had been pissing my pants in anticipation, because this felt like the true successor to the City of Caterpillar empire. Sure, they don't have the mosh inducing intensity of their parent band, or even the disarmingly beautiful instrumental sections...they honestly share more in common with Malady musically than City, but this time it felt more legit. Seriously, this is something wonderful: shoegaze that I don't hate. Taking the elements I enjoy about the genre and saying “fuck off” to the elements I hate about it. Fantastic instrumentation runs rampant through this EP; especially the wonderfully restrained drumming of Ryan Parrish, who is a great example of a dude who really knows how to fuck shit up on the drums but doesn't always have to let everyone in the room know it, which is the #1 quality I look for in a drummer. "Tiny Speakers" and "In a Factory" are early standouts.

I'm going to wrap this up. Long ass story short: check some of these dudes out, maybe you'll dig it. If you're not into anything even remotely “hard” your best bet is Ghastly City Sleep. Support these dudes in any way you can, because as I'm sure we all know there's no money in shit like this. Buying their $10 record from their myspace or whatever probably means they get to go out and have a beer that night. And for fuck's sake Verse En Coma give you the CD AND LP of Rialto packaged together for the price of a regular CD. What else are you going to do with that money, buy You've Got Mail on DVD? Go see Disaster Movie? Don't be a dick.

Also check out stuff like Haram, Pygmy Lush and Gregor Samsa for more ex-City of Caterpillar action.

I doubt my other posts will be nearly as long and/or serious as this.

-The Good Doctor B

Ham on Rye

I've lot of news from the pony express mail bag today and a pretty serious rant. It'll be like a news sandwich, good news/bad news/good news, no dijon.

Last night, Megan and I decided to make it official. We're going to go down to the courthouse! To buy the name next week (after we both get paid, duh) and turn this shit into a media empire, of course. It's not like we're getting married or anything. That would be gay.

It is mind-blowing to both of us what has happened in the last two months with this project and it is really satisfying to sprawl out in a booth in Churchill's and think "hey, maybe this is something we don't totally suck at." Here is my Mariah Carey moment, if we didn't have the support of our readers and friends and everyone who has pushed their dignity aside to plug us, we'd still just be a bunch of frumpy bitches dicking around on the internet. I mean, we still are, but we are a bunch of frumpy bitches with fans dicking around on the internet.

With all of that out of the way, I feel like it's time to address the unofficial Pony Girl Club mission statement. In our myspace's "about me" section Megan hits the nail on the head when she says "we are trying to find an honest language to talk about music in ways that are useful," because that is the entire reason we began this fuckery. I got so sick of bands I liked not getting enough attention because the writers over at other certain weblications were too busy swordfighting with their friends' bands (not the cool kind like in an epic battle, rather the kind where two straight dudes touch weenies) or certain bands being plugged because their label happens to bring in a great deal of ad revenue for another certain publication. I know what it's like to run a publication that is controlled by ad revenue and it sucks. Our main interest is (surprisingly, not Spencer Krug) bringing our readers stuff that we would want to know about a band without the bullshit of playing nice because so and so might pull their ads if we shit talk a band. The first promise I made myself when we started this blog was that I wasn't going to do favors for friends because that takes the honesty out of my writing and my credibility will exponentially decay. I like most of my friends' bands, although some of them include ultra-offensive hip-hop side projects or fake speed metal bands that I cringe at and look the other way, but unless you put out an album or play a show, you probably won't make it onto the site. We're never short on actual news, we're just short on time. Basically, I'm not going to write some sugar-spun feature about your shit just because you grew a fucking beard or I think your guitarist has a pretty bad case of the cute with a touch of the hot because it's not fair. You know what else? Sometimes I just don't like stuff. Okay, most of the time I just don't like stuff. I'm gonna be honest about it, because that's the only language we speak here at the Pony Girl Club.


For the tangy rye crust of this news sandwich, I'd like to officially welcome Dr. Bubastis as the newest Pony Girl. You may remember him ripping me a new one when I said the Refused were influential a while back, or more recently his Jeff Lewis style freakout about most of the venues in San Diego. The Doctor is not a freelance gynecologist like my other doctorly friends, but is rather fiendish in nature and sports a handlebar mustache. We're afraid he might tie us to the train tracks one of these days, coattails flapping in the wind. We tried to make a video of us hazing him into the ways of the Pony Girl but he and his mustache wanted to stay faceless. It's easier to be a mysterious villain that way. I can give you a rough recap of what happened though. We started out the day by demanding that the doctor procure a flat-bed tow truck so we can put two chaise lounges on the back and drink mimosas in our lolita sunglasses and bathing suits while he drives us by the beach. I like the beach, but I hate sand. It worked perfectly that way. Next, we strapped him to a chair and put on that headgear from A Clockwork Orange that peels your eyes open with tiny metal spider legs and made him watch all the Spencer Krug videos on youtube. Currently he alternates between being in love with Spencer and thinking he actually is The Krug. It's a little weird. We prefer when he thinks he is Spencer, personally.

Megan here, and I must concur that the Doctor is much more pleasant on those occasions when he believes himself to be the Krug. Last time he tuned my autoharp and gathered wildflowers and arranged them in the sitting room. Usually he lurks in the darkness, occasionally twisting his mustache and laughing maniacally.

Next in our day of hazing, we had a drinking contest with the Doctor but we didn't tell him that we were doing shots of water while he was doing shots of rumplemintz (sorry doc!). Next, we lined up all our female friends and had him run the gauntlet a few times while we hit him with pillows. Then we curled his eyelashes. We made him eat a jar of jalapenos and wash it down with a couple Arrogant Bastards, then we drove him around listening to Mariah Carey (and us singing along at top volume) until he puked on one of our ex-boyfriend's lawns. I think now he's ready to be a ponygirl.


in ponies you will always trust,

'stina and megan elizabeth