The stuffed animals on the trampoline – hilarious.

All in all it kicks ass.

This week covered Grunge – trying to see where it fit and talking to the artists to see where they felt they fit into the big picture of heavy music and metal. Which leads me to my point:

Back in the day, ‘typical’ grunge folk (the artists, fans, bands – the scene) struck me exactly as the stereotype portrayed them…as whiny, mopey, pretentious faux-intellectuals who took themselves too seriously and were too cool for anything.

Upon seeing these people 20 years later as full grown adults in their 40′s and pushing 50, I was surprised (or maybe I wasn’t) to find that nothing has changed. Except it’s even more eye-roll worthy and rage inducing to see them still acting like that.

I can sum up most of the interviews like this, “Heavy music before us sucked. Heavy music since us is a rip off…and sucks. You’re stupid if you like anything else. Music reached perfection back in my day when I was coming of age and I don’t realize that everyone thinks that about the music they grew up with. I’ve become exactly the walking stereotype I claim to stand against. Get off my lawn.”

These people were lame 20 years ago and they’re still lame today. Not enough of them killed themsleves. But there is hope – many of the bands are getting back together so there just might be some additional overdoses and shotgun blasts in their futures. We can hope, right?

—

And Geico brought back the stupid-ass wee-wee-wee pig for a new commercial and I hope whoever made that decision goes on tour with one of the fucking reunited grunge bands.

One of my favorite bands was Saigon Kick (unfortunately famous for “Love Is On The Way” in the early 90′s). Owl Stretching is their Guitarist/Vocalist and a few other guys who’d been officially or unofficially in the band (or not) making new tunes and it really sounds a lot like old SK.

For the record, 80′s hair band White Lion had Vito power.

The other place I expected to possibly use it (but hadn’t yet) was the car. The Camaro is pretty connected that way and there’s a USB port in it. If you hook up the iPod, you can control it from the radio. I never really used it because I was usually playing with XM. The XM trial ended a little while back and I was on the fence about renewing. It was cool and I had waited long enough to get the $77 offer, but there were only a few channels I really listened to regularly.

Google Music on my phone encouraged me to check out the Camaro’s Bluetooth Audio feature. I’m glad I did. If terrestrial radio isn’t sufficient, I’ll just use my phone. Between Pandora, the iheartradio app and Google Music, I have access to my entire personal music collection, radio from around the country and ‘personalized’ stations based on my preferences. Sorry, XM. I have no need for you.

And the phone can just stay in my pocket or console and I can snag calls with the hands-free feature. Pretty cool stuff.

In all honesty, I never really loved the iPod. I wanted to, but it’s one of the few tech/gadget/electronic purchases I sort of always regretted. It’s a unitasker gadget and that’s unacceptable and archaic (see my Kindle hate – sorry, Jeff). If a device I own can do the same thing at least mostly as well, there’s no need to a standalone device. That standalone device has to be pretty exceptional. The main thing the iPod had going for it was that it was my music specifically as opposed to music I like including some specific songs. Google Music just took care of that.

Best part is, today is also my renew date for a new phone. Looks like Santa just might be leaving me a shiny new phone (any advice on an Android phone?) this year. The timing feels right.

I swung by Tyler’s blog and was led to this article about Coldplay not letting their newest album be played on the various streaming sources.

It’s all fine and dandy until the last few paragraphs:

Coldplay’s handlers are telling some of the services they won’t stream because they believe “Mylo Xyloto” should be heard as one cohesive work, according to one industry insider with knowledge of the discussions. They don’t want the album to be broken up into singles.

If that’s true, how often have we heard this before? Acts such as AC/DC, Kid Rock, and Pink Floyd have all eschewed digital sales at one point and claimed that their music should be heard in its entirety.

That’s fine, but forcing people to buy music that they may not want is taking us back to the days of the CD, when fans people required to plunk down $15 for one or two good songs. It was anti-consumer then and it is anti-consumer now.

Wow. What a load of shit written by someone who needs punched in the face. Repeatedly. By musicians.

Wouldn’t that be like me going to a world-class chef and complaining that I have to pay for all 7 courses when I really only want the appetizer and desert? Damn that chef for being anti-consumer. Or complaining that I can’t just rip a few pages out of a book because those are the chapters I’m interested in? Stupid authors, all smug on their anti-consumer high horses. Those heartless fuckers! Or bitching that you have to buy the whole sculpture when you just want the bust for your mantle?

It is what it is. Who the hell are you to dissect an artist’s work because you want to chop it up like some piecemeal junk for your own parasitic means? They’re not selling you songs, dipshit, they’re selling you an album. If you want to buy songs, you need to look elsewhere. And then to turn it around and call the practice anti-consumer? Holy. Fucking. Shit.

And then the comments…sigh. The devaluing of music is such a shame.

I really like to think people would have enough respect for the artists and the music they love to support the cause, but because it’s not presented how they want it, they’ll bitch, moan and take it for free. So do we expect the artist to whore the process to turn a buck because the consumer has become a douchebag? If so, what does that say about the product?

People say they quit buying because so much was crap. I say so much is crap because people quit buying.

If I had any idea then that someday it’d be described as, “That old music my Dad listens to” – my head would’ve exploded.

As an admitted assman…well, I’m picking my jaw off the floor.

…it couldn’t be any cooler.

\m/