Rarity....

You're never going to see my posting online wrestling critics on this site because I think most of them are geeks with too much free time, moreso than me, which is saying something. But this video by Truthslayer actually rhetorically asks some good questions to the wrestling world. Check it out if you like wrestling, if you don't, leave me alone.

My 2009 Playlist (thus far)

A lot of people have been asking me, “Dave, what’s the best album of the year?” and I gotta say, if you know me, I don’t judge until the end. I mean, I keep a quiet list in my head of good stuff, but I never really choose until I’m sitting down at my computer writing up the list. In fact, last year Vampire Weekend was my number one album until I sat down in a noisy Subaru dealership and realized just how great Atmosphere’s album was. But all of this aside, I won’t tell you what’s the best, but I will give you an idea of my favorite tracks of the year thus far. This is not in any order, it’s just a list of the songs that have held my attention for several plays...

1. Mos Def ft. Slick Rick-Auditorium
I’ve been talking about this track for the last week or two to people, but it’s been played a whole lot in said week. Up until The Ecstatic came out, I was against Mos, his last two albums were extremely disappointing, and his ego is completely out of whack. I saw him make a fool of himself on Bill Maher and remember just shaking my head in shame. But the new album is straight up classic Mos, and this track in particular shows that he still has a grasp of how to pull some strings to add credibility. Slick Rick hasn’t been “relevant” for a long time, but this track shows that unlike so many rappers that lose their lyrical game with age (Fat Joe, Snoop) he’s still got it and he’s not just glitzy chains and an eye patch. The beat is chill to the point of being haunting and the lyrics are nice.
2. The Cutoff Frequency-Danny pt. 2
Considering I know all of the members of this band very well, this song making the list shows something of its quality. I am a very harsh judge of local music, especially with people I’ve played with, and in the case of the Cutoff Frequency that’s every single member. But something about this song, the harmonies in the chorus, the synth line, it just hits the spot for me. And the mix is really dirty sounding, in a good way.
3. Eminem ft. Dr. Dre-Old Times Sake
Relapse is a lackluster album, if there is one thing I can forewarn you of my list for best of the year, it’s that unless #2 is a classic, Eminem won’t make it. But this song shows how good the album could’ve been. Granted the lyrics are hollow, but it’s Dre and Em showing they’ve still got the rhythm that made them so famous. I think this may be the closest we’ll get to the Eminem we all loved so much.
4. Kid Cudi ft. Ratatat and MGMT-Pursuit of Happiness
The first time I heard this track I thought it was pretentious, as I think Cudi’s ego exceeds his ability (my friend did sound for him and told me some horror stories) but the MGMT and Ratatat combo on this track really makes it. And I don’t dislike Kid Cudi, I like his slow moving delivery, he’s not trying to show you he’s the best lyricist in the game, because I think he’s aware he’s not. He’s more about cranking out decent jams that make you think for a little while. Ratatat’s signature sound just stinks up this track and it’s great.
5. Lily Allen-The Fear
By far the best pop track of the year. Lily is the anti-hero for pop music and that’s why I love her. Not only does she completely buy into the paparazzi, but she makes incredibly catchy, yet credible music. Since this is an early album I think a lot of critics will forget to put it on their lists, but it certainly deserves to be there.
6. Sneep Deepy ft. Mike Falzone-Better Than Me
I like hip-hop music. I like friends from my hometown. So this is a logical choice for this list. Mr. Deepy raps about things that are relevant to any CT townie, but at the same time speaks to people getting dirt from others who have no reason to lay it down. There’s a great line that where speaking on a beer pong game, he coldly taunts his opponent with, “Nice state school sweat shirt. You ain’t better than me.” DAMN!
7. RX Bandits- It’s Only Another Parsec...
Nice Star Wars reference first of all. Secondly this song rocks out hard. I was weary that without the horns RXB would lose their signature sound, but the sick nasty use of keyboards fills that void perfectly in this song. The heavy rocking of the tunes combined with the jam-friendly hands of guitarists Matt Embree and Steve Choi make this track a near perfect one of its genre.
8. Slaughterhouse-The One
Slaughterhouse is a “supergroup” of four underground emcee’s looking to break through to the mainstream, and this track is the one in which they tried the hardest. They spit about celebrities, drugs, alcohol and partying, but do it in a classy old school Slim Shady manner, showing that while they may talk smack, they are doing it intricately enough that you have to respect it. There’s a line where Royce Da 5’9” mentions old school icons Rod Stewart and Ozzy Osbourne, only to follow it up with witty lines about Keri Hilson and Paris Hilton. If only Joe Budden didn’t run his mouth and get knocked out by...
9. Raekwon ft. Inspektah Deck, Ghostface Killah and Method Man
At Rock The Bells in New York they were giving away free posters for Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II and I said to myself, “I’ll hang this up on my wall until the album comes out and if it’s good I’ll keep it up.” Little did I know just how good it would be. This track is reminiscent of classic Wu-Tang, the lyrics on point and the beat as kung fu influenced as you’d expect it to be. Awesome.
10. Mike Falzone & The Peppermint Trick-Leave a Little For the Fallout
I love Stratford CT’s king, Mike Falzone’s music, but in the past, I felt that it wasn’t complete. There was always something missing from it. On his album Fairview, it felt like the hip-hop beats were taking away from his songwriting, and on his next release Fun With Honesty, the music was there, but the band didn’t feel like it was truly a band of it’s own, rather an ensemble gathered to record the EP. On his newest release Do It For the Story, Falzone and new band The Peppermint Trick hit gold. This track is so well put together, it’s a great first track to the EP, and the layering of instruments into an extremely satisfying explosion of sound is awesome. The keyboards especially make me smile.
11. Spinal Tap-Stonehenge
The new Tap album is kind of pointless, a few new tracks and refreshed recordings of the old songs, most of which don’t sound as good as their originals. Stonehenge however, takes the greatness of the classic version and injects some modern ROCK into it. It’s the same song it once was, but it kicks so much harder now.
12. Dylan Connor- Breakaway and Burn
Wow, I love local music. Dylan Connor, the teacher by day, rock star by night, is somewhat comparable to Mike Falzone. On his last album Plug In, his songs were beautiful and well written, but they lacked the kick that would bring them up to classic level. On Breakaway Republic, his live band took to the studio and made this album, but specifically this track great. The way the slap bass smoothly layers in the chorus and the drums move the verse along is beautiful.
13. La Coka Nostra-That’s Coke
La Coka Nostra are a bunch of angry white middle-aged rappers who still grip onto their gangsta personas and pray that the public believes in them. The only catch is that it’s all entirely believable! They come off as scary dudes that seem like they may kill you. Made up of House of Pain (Everlast, DJ Lethal, Danny Boy O’Connor) and Ill Bill and Slaine, LCN are not afraid to scare you, but make you bob your head along for the ride.
14. Miley Cyrus-Party in the USA
If you consider the fact that a group of Disney pop songwriters crafted this song, tracked the instruments and came up with everything and then autotuned the hell out of Miley Cyrus’s voice, it’s really easy to get behind this track. It’s so catchy and the synth line in the chorus is awesome. Just put your hands up!
15. Drake ft. Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West, and Eminem-Forever
Wow, what a lineup. I think this song blew “Swagga Like Us” out of the water. The beat is instantly memorable, the clichéd airhorns adding to the power of it. Lyrically it’s none of these guys’ best verses, but it’s certainly worth listening to. The best part is the beat under Wayne’s verse, it gets so dark. And this also proves how good Relapse could’ve been had Eminem tried.
16. Chickenfoot-Sexy Little Thing
Something about this supergroup made up of Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Chad Smith screams, “Stay away, we’re pure cheese!” but anyone who knows me I will dive head first in! It’s awesome! It’s fun, mindless and catchy.

Now there are other albums I really like, and some of the tracks on this list are parts of a lesser whole, so don’t let this little mixtape give you assumptions of what’s number one or two or three!

My Top 25

I always think peoples top 25 most played songs playlist on iTunes are some of the most interesting things. It shows you about what they listen to a lot, and if they're your friends you can chastise them for having unpredicted songs ("I Love College" was on one of my friends lists) and it's just a cool way of gauging artists you don't really say you love but you do! So here's my list. Take it for what it is, I think it's a nice look at the diversity of what I listen to, though some artists stack up. Who cares?

1. Andrew W.K.-Party Hard
2. Lordi-Hard Rock Hallelujah
3. Peeping Tom ft. Rahzel & Dan The Automator-Mojo
4. Smashing Pumpkins-Tarantula
5. The Jackson 5-I Want You Back
6. KISS-Strutter
7. Mark Ronson ft. Lily Allen-Oh My God
8. MGMT-Time To Pretend
9. Andrew W.K.-She Is Beautiful
10. The Bar-Kays-Too Hot To Stop
11. Common-Be
12. The Cool Kids-Pennies
13. GZA/The Genius-4th Chamber
14. The Hives-Tick Tick Boom
15. Mr. Bungle-Ars Moriendi
16. Paul McCartney & Wings-Jet
17. Vampire Weekend-A-Punk
18. Vampire Weekend-M79
19. Aesop Rock-None Shall Pass
20. Andrew W.K.-We Want Fun
21. Biffy Clyro-Who's Got a Match?
22. Cake-Wheels
23. Chickenfoot-Soap On a Rope
24. Daft Punk-Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
25. Dylan Connor-Breakaway and Burn

That's it. Cool.

DVD Review: Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan

dir: Gerard Barclay

The Wu-Tang Clan is in my top 5 musical groups of all time. I can't tell you why, I can't tell you exactly when, and I can't tell you for what reason, but about two years ago something in my head just clicked and told me, "This group will change the way you look at hip-hop music." I'd had Enter The Wu-Tang on my iTunes for some time, and most of it I'd listened to and liked, but none of it had really sunk in. I saw them on Rock the Bells 2007, co-headlining with Rage Against the Machine, both of whom had re-united for the tour, and I remember when they hit the stage there was a reverence. There was a level of respect between the members on stage and the percentage of the crowd that was into the music that I wish that I had for a group, and sure enough two years later, I have it for them.

With that in mind, I've spent my fair share of money on the Clan. I physically own 15 of their CD's, several from the group, several solo and a small handful of compilation albums, I have 2 t-shirts a hoody, a limited run poster on my wall, and I spent an entire afternoon in Barnes and Noble reading their first book The Wu-Manual (I didn't buy it because the cover was ripped nearly off). So for all I's and P's, I'm a big fan. So when BET went out and said they were airing a documentary to celebrate the group, I was ecstatic. It had been years since the Wu had received mainstream media attention, and with such a strong resumé since their last big commercial success, it was time. Unfortunately due to schedule conflicts (Damn you, Hofstra!) I didn't catch the doc on TV. So, thanks to the lovely people at Netflix, I finally got to watch the documentation of the Clan's career.

To sum it up, this documentary is not for Wu fans. It scratches the surface of their career, paying attention to the highest of highs and the lowest of lows of the CLAN, not of each of the 10 members. It can be more or less broken into five major segments:

1. The Rise
2. Enter the Wu-Tang/National Recognition
3. The fame/Wu-Tang Forever
4. Ol' Dirty Bastard's jailing and death
5. (a very brief look at) Modern Wu.

Now for those that don't know the music of the Clan, this may seem legitimate. But what the documentary skims over is just as, if not more important than some of the topics covered. Director Gerard Barclay chooses to omit the fact that two of the groups spawned solo albums, GZA's Liquid Swords and Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx influenced the hip hop game on comparable levels to their debut Enter the Wu-Tang. I read a review on the Internet Movie Database that said it was forgivable to skip over these because they weren't the entire Clan efforts. Well perhaps that's true, but all of the first round of Wu solo albums were produced by RZA, and all of them featured most of the Clan on several tracks, Raekwon's album "guest starring" Ghostface Killah on over half of the album. But even if these factors weren't involved in the solo albums, the documentary completely leaves out the groups other two albums, The W and Iron Flag the first of which was O.D.B.'s last album with the Clan.

And aside from the discography, the overall production of this documentary is highly flawed. The stock footage is shotty, and the audio is mostly overdubbed during live performances. Not to mention there are only two concerts used, one of which before Enter the Wu was released, the other after their massive success and release of Wu-Tang Forever. The interviews are very limited, mostly RZA and non-members such as Steve Rifkind of Loud Recrods. There are brief stock interviews of several members, and Raekwon, Cappadonna and affiliate Popa Wu are the only ones who were interviewed in 2008 for the documentary. This leaves out GZA, Method Man, Ghostface Killah, U-God, Inspektah Deck and Masta Killa, all of whom surely have stories of the Clan.

Another piece of the documentary that I found to be a bit frustrating was the amount of attention paid to O.D.B. I understand his passing was the moment the Clan re-grouped, but given the amount of time to cover the careers of all 10 members, Dirty's last days are treated as though he was the only important member of the group. There is enough material and footage of Ol' Dirty Bastard to make a documentary just on him, and it would be fascinating, but when I put in The Story of the Wu-Tang I expect to be given views on most of, if not all of the members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Director/Writer/Narrator Barclay also lacks motivation. When he speaks, it's as if he's reading a written script he's never heard before, lacking any emotion. His edits are weak, his stock footage of New York from the 1990's is non-existent, and his range as a director is incredibly low. I understand how he thought he was the right fit for the job, as he'd been the man behind the camera for a lot of memorable Wu-Tang moments, but his lack of any real filmmaking skill takes away that level of being the right fit.

In his last shots of the documentary, Barclay and his crew manage to spell Masta Killa's name wrong (Masta Killer) as well as the title of 8 Diagrams (calling it Diagram singular). He also summarizes the most famous members with their own frame, lumping the "lower-level" members all on one frame listing them, saying they "are recording new albums." However, it's fine for him to give himself a frame saying "I continue to direct". It's an insulting end to a lackluster documentary by an unqualified director.

I highly recommend the 2006 doc by Denis Hennelly and Casey Suchan Rock the Bells, the documentation of the Wu's first and last reunion before Dirty's death. It's an extremely deep and fascinating look into one concert that covers more about each Wu member than this entire waste of time did about the whole Clan.

Review: Swan Songs by Hollywood Undead

They were on sale at Sports Authority!


Let me begin by professing my love for nü- metal. I love nü-metal. A lot of people ask me why? I don’t know, it just hits the spot when I need it to, simple as that. Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other was the first CD I remember using my own money to buy, granted it was censored, but I was in the seventh grade.

In the case of the three kings of nü-metal, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Korn, the common factor is the strong musicianship backing up the somewhat lackluster lyricists of Mike Shinoda, Fred Durst, and Jonathon Davis respectively. But in the genre, the lyrics don’t exactly matter, they’re not channeling great MC’s like NaS or Talib Kweli, they’re screaming about driving their cars and doing things their way and telling people to shut up when they talk. But not once, not ever, have I taken these bands seriously. I love the musicians in Limp Bizkit and Korn, and I admit that Linkin Park can hold their own, but I completely understand how some consider the genre to be a skid mark on rock and roll’s history. I don’t, but I understand if you do.

So with my love for the genre in mind, you can imagine that when I heard about California’s Hollywood Undead, I was excited. A new nü-metal band? It seemed too good to be true. I’d seen some critics trash them, but that’s to be expected. Limp Bizkit’s classic Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water got butchered by critics. “Whatever,” I said, “No big deal, I’m sure if they have their heads in the right place, they’ll make fun music.” So with that I dove into their debut LP Swan Songs, excited for the genres regeneration. And to add to Songs’ credibility, Don Gilmore, producer of Linkin Park’s first two album, put his producer stamp on this. A passing of the torch perhaps?

The album starts with the steady rockin’ “Undead” which samples The Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” while layering gang vocals and mindless rap. What struck me instantly on the first track, is that while the music kicked some serious behind, the lyrics weren’t like that of the great gods of Durst, Shinoda and Davis, but more along the lines of Lil’ John. They were actually trying to rap over the mildly good metal grooves. It took a moment to set in, but I got over the ridiculousness of that. I said to myself, “I can get behind this if it gets better musically throughout the album.”


Slipknot doesn't wear scene clothes!

Little did I know that Hollywood Undead had absolutely no clue what they wanted there sound to be when they made this album. They spend most of the it jumping back and forth between somewhat heavy tracks and goofy party rock tracks. I thought I was going to be listening to a new age Linkin Park, but instead I was getting a stupidly bad-ass LMFAO. The “rappers” Charlie Scene, J-Dog, Johnny 3 Tears, Funny Man and Da Kurlzz have absolutely no idea how to construct lyrics without coming off like complete and utter morons. I said only a few paragraphs up that even the iconic nü-metal singers couldn’t write decent lyrics, but they never went out and tried to make songs that read like real radio rap music. In the albums low point, “Everywhere I Go”, one of the rappers (I can’t tell the difference most of the time) spits the lyric “Gotta get drunk before my mom wakes up / Break-up with my girlfriend so I can bang sluts.” And did I mention that the chorus of the song Charlie Scene makes several references to his “weenie” in the same song?

What also makes “Everywhere” a terrible song is the way it’s rapped. Charlie Scene, or whomever it is, channels Eminem incredibly poorly. Trying to be that Slim Shady-esque character made famous in tracks like “My Name Is” before kicking the chorus with a Fall Out Boy like whine, again, referring to his “weenie” more than once during every chorus.

The band also reminds me of another similar band, Chronic Future, the only difference being that Chronic Future makes pop-punk infused rap music, not heavy metal. There’s some uppity vibe sent out by Chronic Future that makes their happy music generally work, while Hollywood Undead talk about having meaningless sex, drinking and smoking marijuana while trying to layer keyboards and drum machines. My advice; if you want to make this music work, don’t overdo the novelty instruments. In this case, the keys are certainly novelty. Very, very much so. Most of the album is overly layered with this stuff.

And just when they appear to have done everything in their power to make me dislike them, the band goes back into a sad rock song about why life is meaningless, or something along those lines. While the albums most popular single, “Young” does convey a decent amount of competence on the part of the musicians and the singers, that and the first track alone don’t have nearly enough power to keep the album stable.

With that being said, Hollywood Undead is a hopeless cause. Garbed in their hockey masks, but rapping about how everyone knows who they are, talking about how hardcore they are and then singing about taking their clothes off in the club and wearing scene clothes, Hollywood Undead are just a musical contradiction. I don’t recommend this album to anyone, unless you find the masterful work of LMFAO to be not hardcore enough, but on the right track.