Thursday, March 6, 2008

Every Man Has A Plan Molly

Note: I believe I've overdosed on Nyquil and some codeine-containing cough syrup the doctor prescribed me, so forgive any rambling or insanity contained in the following post.

Well, I somehow managed to get sick again, after being healthy for a mere 3 or so weeks, so I'm gonna try to keep tonight's post brief. Two years ago, I pretty much hadn't heard of Say Anything, despite having two covers of theirs. It wasn't until I came across a friend's MySpace profile with a song of theirs on it that I really took notice of the band.I soon sought out more of their stuff and definitely liked what I heard. An indie band, Say Anything tends to be witty and snarky in most of their songs, and neurotic Jew frontman Max Bemis has that kinda tortured genius thing going on.

Say Anything - Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too

There's not a lot I think I can say about this track that will do it justice. This song lets Bemis showcase how awesome juvenile he can be while still including a fair amount of his magical Jew wit. The video has The Fonz in it and has Bemis mocking the ludicrous extravagance of modern hip-hop videos. Bemis even manages to work in a few super-high, Justin Timberlake-like high notes for good measure. Plus, how can you not love a song that has the chorus of, "I called her on the phone and she touched herself. She touched herself. She touched herself. I called her on the phone and she touched herself. I laughed myself to sleep?"

Say Anything - Admit It!!!
Max lays on the intellectualism heavily in the lyrics to this one, even managing to add an air of elitism while being brutally honest how flawed he actually is. The song is still quite catchy, although due to Bemis speaking more of the lyrics than he sings in this one, some people may find his voice fairly annoying.

Say Anything - Dammit (Growing Up) (Acoustic Cover)
If I mention covers, I'm probably not too far from posting one. Plus, this seemed to be a good way to end out the post. Here, the group tackles the Blink 182 breakout hit, Dammit. The group opts to slow it down and swap over to acoustic for this track, and I feel it works pretty well. Max also seems to be a bit more brooding and emotive than in the original.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

First Single-Track Post

Hey, so I'm pretty to new to every single person reading this (including you, Google-spider-bot-spider). Frankly, the only reason I bagged this gig was because back when I was living in Ypsilanti, I gave this chick a ride to the last Hey Mercedes concert all the way over in Chicago. A chick who once sucked the cock of Rise Against's lead singer on a regular basis. See the connection? Chyeah buddy.

Porchsleeper - Drunk Again
Let's celebrate my first post with a song about being totally obliterated because, well, I'm pretty much near that point right now. This is a rousing tune that hits all the high - and embarassing points - of being drunk. I mean, what other song mentions the legendary bum-wine Thunderbird within the opening ten seconds of the track? None, that's how many. Put that in your [citations needed] and smoke it, Wikipedia. Hitting on whoever let's me take them home and drunk dialing your exes to ask for sex is pretty much standard fare in the old game of horseshoes (or handgrenades for the veterans out there) known as drinking your ass off. But the best part of this song? They're a local band! Indie cred, hobos!

Hey how about songs guy?

Hey everyone, Slitty here, or Optimist for those of you that (don't) know me from thi or other websites and forums. I intended to do this yesterday but a nasty storm kept disconnecting me from the internet and I got annoyed so I turned off the computer and waited a day, and here I am am :) Yay!

The Network - Teenagers From Mars
An interesting choice for a couple of reasons ...none of which have anything to do with how good the song is. The song overall is really just so-so, no better or worse than the other songs on the album.

It's interesting for one because "The Network" is a side project of the members of Green Day. It's a side project where the members deny any involvement in the band and wear masks for interviews and music videos and then never makes another album after 2004.

And for two, this is a cover of a Misfits song. Now I would expect Misfit covers from AFI because Davey Havok has the biggest hard on for The Misfits ever. He has done covers and overall seems to really enjoy them and their early music and style had a very Misfits feel.

But Green Day (and The Network since they are the same band) are as far from The Misfits as humanly possible. If Green Day and The Misfits were crustaceans, Green Day would be a shrimp and The Misfits would be ...that's right, the giant isopod.


Weezer - My Name is Jonas
Another interesting one because this one has some special meaning to me outside of whatever the hell the song is actually about. Wikipedia says its about the lead singer's mentally handicapped brother not getting car insurance, so whatever.

I recently got Guitar Hero III recently and this is one of my favorite songs to play on it and I really really suck at so it gives me a reason to keep playing it. Also this is from one of Weezer's first albums back before they sucked. And I can listen to the song and know that maybe one day Weezer will quit sucking so hardcore.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Whatcha gon' do with all that ass inside dem jeans?

If you know me, you really shouldn't be surprised that we're starting off here with some covers. One is absolutely horrible and the other is still kinda bad, but a very interesting take on the original, and a slight improvement, if nothing else.

Alanis Morissette - My Humps
The Black Eyed Peas version of this song probably set black people back centuries. Unfortunately, it also launched Fergie into the mainstream, which would eventually come to haunt me in the form of musical excrement like London Bridge and Fergalicious. For this, I hate the Black Eyed Peas.

Here, Alanis takes the inane, moronic gibberish of the original and ...well, sings it exactly, but in a much more soulful, dramatic way. She almost makes the song good, as well as giving it feeling, and slight credibility as a real song. This, along with a Blame Amy song I may post for you all eventually, show perfectly how someone with talent can actually make Fergie somewhat tolerable; possibly even good.


The Wiggles - Walk On The Wild Side
Hey, remember that awesome Lou Reed song about transvestites, prostitutes, sex, and has the colored girls sing, "Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo?"

So do The Wiggles, and they've decided to cover it. This is like Barney The Dinosaur covering Smack My Bitch Up. There are just some songs children's performers should probably not sing. If choosing this song wasn't weird enough in itself, they decided to change virtually all of the lyrics. I guess singing to little kids about not losing your head while giving head isn't as deep as it used to be. I would suggest staying as far away from this song as possible, but then I'd have just wasted my time writing this paragraph. Besides, this is bad enough that you've really got to hear it for yourself at least once.

It starts...

So I'm sure you're wondering who we are, what we're doing, and what this place is. You may even find yourself wondering what a musical black hole is. In short, this will be a place where FNJ (formerly The Flyin' Jew) and I will give you a look at whatever the hell we feel like at the moment, generally one track per day. We may decide to post more if the mood strikes, but we'll be shooting for at least one every day.

So what exactly will you find here? Anything. It may be an awesome cover we've just recently come across, a musical train wreck by the latest pop superstar, a rap remix of something that should never have a "phat beat" thrown behind it, or even videogame music. Whatever we post, be it good or bad, we'll try and make sure it's at least interesting.

If you enjoy whatever you end up reading, be sure to spread the word. If not, be sure to let us know what we can do to improve.

P.S. - As for the title, when you keep all 45 gigs of your music in one folder, it tends to become somewhat of a musical black hole. It becomes a place where P. Diddy hangs out with Garth Brooks while Metallica has a drink with Britney Spears and a couple Japanese guys belt out Gangsta's Paradise for their listening pleasure. Basically, it's a 591 hour clusterfuck of all kinds of music from all kinds of places by all kinds of artists, and really, what name could be better than that?