103 posts tagged “thirty-one days of rocktober”
My heart wasn't in it - not for one single minute. But even though I slacked through most of the month, I'm not about to shirk on the obligatory encore. Rocktober doesn't end until the Old 97's take the stage. Which means that today - finally - our long national nightmare is over.
And so another Rocktober limps to a sad close. Sure, we were mostly disinterested this time around, but it could have been worse. Way worse. We didn't post any shitty songs and our posts didn't require an interpreter to make sense of them. It's comforting to know that no matter how badly we phone it in, Cappy will be there setting the bar low enough that our apathy doesn't matter. So until next year.... Or whatever.
We've been wondering for the past few days what is the protocol on the off chance one of the copycats happens to post a song we had on our agenda. Because that happened. We ultimately decided to go ahead and stick with our original setlist because A) we started Rocktober and B) Cappy is an idiot. His blog isn't even written in English. We're not sure what it is (our best guess is some bizarre variation of whatever language Sarah Palin speaks), but it sure as shit ain't English. We've often wondered what his many followers are thinking when they comment, because there's no way they can possibly understand what the fuck he's supposed to be talking about. They're probably just nodding along because they know better than to upset the crazy person. Anyway, we've kind of gotten off-topic here. Let's just get to the rock....
I learned a couple of months ago that AC/DC's Back in Black has sold more copies worldwide than any record except Thriller. That surprised me for about four seconds until I actually thought about it. Eventually, every teenage boy is going to hear "You Shook Me All Night Long" during his adolescence and buy a copy. Back in Black is like the Monopoly game of rock albums.
I promised myself I wasn't going to phone it in tonight. But I only just now got home from work. I had a mostly shitty day. I'm way behind on a drawing I promised Daby and CarrieNation. And my favorite baseball team - the New York Yankees - are playing game one of the World Series. So here we are.
Chuck Klosterman calls this song "the emo 'Rock Around the Clock.'" Is he right? I don't know. Nobody knows. What's the point of debating, anyway? Who cares?
I have busy morning and special announcement to post later this evening, so I'm gonna keep this short and sweet. Here's a crappy song I enjoy.
Velvet Goldmine is not a great movie. It does, however, have a great soundtrack featuring a nice mix of glam-rock era originals, covers, and pastiches. I especially like the songs written for the film by Shudder to Think - partially because they're only barely more ridiculous than "Ziggy Stardust" and partially because I've now fulfilled my Rocktober quota for bands from the District of Columbia.
There's a quote typically attributed to Ben Franklin and/or Albert Einstein that defines insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By that logic (which - you have to admit - makes some sense), it is insane to try and do nice things for Jodi. Her typical response is ungrateful griping. The best example of this occurred during Rocktober last year. I knew she had a job interview so I dedicated a Replacements song to her, hoping it would bring her good luck. And how did she react to this gracious gesture? She said, and I quote, I was "the kind of evil that [she] never expected to see manifested here on Earth." So if I were to post another Replacements song, say today, and expect that she will react with anything other than contempt, that would be insane. Call me crazy, but I'm gonna give it a shot. Jodi, this one's for you.
Rock and roll is here to stay (at least through the remainder of the month), but our annual break is overdue. Elliott Smith would like a moment for a few of someone else's words.
