Last weekend in Los Angeles was VH1’s Rock Honors Weekend celebrating The Who and you could absolutely not escape the promo for this event. 2 of the club events I attended under the umbrella of this occasion were Sunday’s Toms Shoes Benefit @ the Hotel Cafe and Monday’s Steel Panther show at the Key Club. Reviews Below, but first… The WINNER of the AvantTrash/Filter Magazine/VH1 Rock Honors “WHO AM I?” CONTEST!

The Questions: and answers.
1. I can’t hear, I can’t talk, I can’t see. Who am I? “Pinball Wizard” or “Tommy, Can You Hear Me” Were both acceptable answers.

2. No one knows what it’s like to be me. I’m sad. Maybe even bad. Who am I? “Behind Blue Eyes” was the correct answer but a couple people answered Brick or Jumbo, which was a more amazing answer. So I decided to reward the winner for ignoring the rules (I was looking for the song title, not the narrator) and giving the more nerd-tastic answer.

3. I’m not old, I live on the Isle of Man. Kids can’t hurt me but they try, try, try. They ride on my head with furry donkeys. They can’t prevent me from being what I am. Who am I? “Happy Jack”…of course.

The winner of The Who prize pack was David Basile of Valley Springs, NY who says,
“I really enjoy your site, good content, your contests are the best!”

So congrats David! Cheers!

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Sunday, July 13th, The Hotel Cafe’s Toms Shoes Benefit, Hollywood, CA

Sunday’s show was nearly a who’s-who (pun accidentally intended) of Hotel Cafe Singer/Songwriter regulars, headlined by the always amazing elder statesman Butch Walker (long ago of The Marvelous 3). Also playing sets were Greg Laswell (who had an album release show the night previous) and Cary Brothers (not siblings, one guy). Honestly I felt a bit aglazed (fuck you spellcheck i made the word up) Sunday and didn’t show up until the last 6 (of 14) performers took the stage. The cause was noble enough: Toms Shoes has a philosophy where for every pair of their shoes they sell, they donate a pair to needy foreign children. Unfortunately the show didn’t have much to stand on. Too much sausage and not enough talented ladies at the end of the night. Butch Walker’s set was full of “new” and “in progress” songs bound for their inevitable obscurity. Walker’s music is too amazing for public consumption (thankfully?), leading many to call him “The best musician you’ve never heard of”. I put “quoteys” around “new” because although they haven’t been released yet (album delayed) I’ve heard some of these songs nearly half a dozen times live (see “Atlanta”). But a good thing about Butch Walker is the way he lets the fans hear his songs evolve between live show and recording. Somehow “Racecars and Goth Rock” from 2004’s Letters sounded better in it’s acoustic “California Gridlock” bootleg form. This trial by fire of sorts has also made some of Butch’s compositions some of the best category-free Rock and Roll of the last 10 years. As per his 1 downer song per album trend I jokingly noted that there would probably be a new song about someone dying and sure enough he sprung one into his set titled something along the lines of “I drove by your house, I saw his car, I thought of you”. I give Butch’s show-and-tell performance a 7/10. It would be unfair to judge the rest, I wasn’t really paying attention.

I didn’t hear any WHO covers that evening.

Monday, July 14th, Steel Panther @ The Key Club, West Hollywood, CA

Big Hair, Spandex, Synchronized Guitar Coreography, Hair Solos, Simulated Oral Sex and Tits. If you’ve never seen the Steel Panther (formerly Metal Shop Metal Skool) show @ the Key Club, then you must truly hate Hair Metal and all things Sunset Strip. Either that or it has somehow remained under your radar despite its continued success. A packed house, every monday? But why? Because it’s hilarious, brilliant, crude, disgusting and shamefully nostalgic. What it boils down to are 4 Hair Metal maestros with Studio Musician cred, playing covers with amazing accuracy and more importantly…enthusiasm. Some Mondays are better than others, but this one was pretty good. I’ve seen better nights and I’ve seen worse. And almost always that has to do with how many of the regular special guests they have joining them during their set. Usually it will be a figure from the glorious 80’s hayday, a slumming pop icon, or in this instance another piece of 80s nostalgia… William Zabka. You know perhaps know him best as “Sweep the leg, Johnny” from The Karate Kid. (or if you are really cool from “Just One of the Guys” or “European Vacation”.) “Billy” as he was addressed by the band, played guitar on a cover of Van Halen’s “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” and actually did a pretty good job. Unfortunately David Cassidy’s older brother was also in the house and played drums on the track…causing its calamitous ending to die in a whimper.

Adding to the festivities was a bevy of what looked like Jager shots delivered to the birthday boy, “53 year old bassist” Lexxi Foxxx. If you go, I suggest you get a birds-eye view of the debauchery from the balcony. You will also get an eye full of L.A.’s biggest douches rubbing metal flake Christian Audiger’d shoulders with semi-famous musicians and personalites of L.A.’s Past and Present (but mostly past). Steel Panther doesn’t take the stage until 12:15 so I suggest you head down to the famous Rainbow Bar and Grill for a bite (great food) and few pre-party drinks (cheaper than the Key Club). 2nd to the food and drink is the amazing people-watching; which is so beautiful it is hard to put into words …there will be fringe, feathered and dyed bangs, spandex and cellulite and probably a few guys who have played Jason or Michael Myers (or could if they removed the masks).

The only Who cover performed was “My Generation” with the lyrics replaced with rhymes about well… groupies mostly. There were masks of Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend circulating the crowd, Half of a Daltry made its way to Michael Starr for the final set of rhymes before the finale. Although sometimes the show borders on the bad side of “Girls Gone Wild”… it is just one of those L.A. things that you have to see. 8.3/10

If you have a time machine, you can always kick it old school.

In my top 5 movies of all time you will find Back To The Future, which I saw in theatres back in 1985. I didn’t want to go, the Dark Cauldron was out that weekend as well. But my Mom dragged my sister and I to see the movie… and I think I never opted to see a kids movie ever again. And I’m a dork. It should also be noted that I live 150 feet from the Hollywood United Methodist Church (the actual location of the ‘Enchantment Under the Sea’ Dance where Marty plays Johnny B. Goode). But we’ve already established that I am a dork…let’s move on.

I saw BTTF:2 on New Years of ‘89/’90 and after witnessing the future scenes it wasn’t just a new year once I left the theatre… it was a new world! Well up on ebay right now is a working prototype of one of Marty McFly’s Nike Air Mags. Bidding began at $1,000 and is now at $2,025 with 8 days left.

This comes shortly after Nike themselves introduced the Back To The Future II inspired shoe which may be a little more affordable, but not much more wearable in public unless you have an orange vest and suspenders. And although they don’t even light up or autolace, they will probably match your Delorean.

But the real question is when will they sell us the hoverboard?

[ADDENDUM: SUN: JULY: 13 2AM]

Today I recieved an email from the folks partially responsible for getting the Nike 2015 Hyperdunks into production. Namely the Maloof brothers @ www.mcfly2015.com {link is down: click here for cached version} gathered 41,000 signatures online and the Prez of Nike still wouldn’t hook them up with a pair! They’d asked him if Nike was planning to produce a faithful McFly “Slamball” shoe (with working autolace and glowing logo) to which CEO and President Mark Parker responded, “The voices have been heard. Stay Tuned!”. Read about their press here.

Thanks for the tips Mickey Maloof and good luck on your quest! I share your dream and hope it becomes a reality. You know if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.

I knew this entire dance in middle school. The chick to Aaliyah’s right is Fatima Robinson, the choreographer. This video made me want to wear green lipstick. Man, I loved MTV then-if for no other reason than all the dancing in videos. That was ten years ago, wowza.

The song is listed as the 387th on the ‘The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born‘. Whatever that means.

I, being from Nebraska, am a huge fan of The Faint. Luckily they are touring through L.A. doing 2 nights at the Fonda. I just might have to see them both. And after 4 years of waiting …a new record!

Press Release:
A culmination of nearly four years of writing and recording, Omaha quintet, The Faint are preparing to release their fifth album, Fasciinatiion, on August 5 on the band’s own newly-formed label, blank.wav. Working on their own without any time constraints, the songs went through many recorded incarnations before finding their final forms. The result is the best album in the band’s career, a record that is the purest culmination of The Faint’s brilliant musical instincts, ideas and aesthetic, with each member contributing equally to its creation.

I’m going to call this a Weekly Trashing even though I’m not really complaining about anything. I just haven’t done one in a while. But I have something to bitch about anyway, just hold on.

I bought a nice TV recently. I’ve never owned anything besides a shitty tube TV ever. I didnt even own a television for the first year I lived here in L.A. I figured, “Why get one when I can watch everything online?” But then I got my SNES and NES sent out here (Zelda ain’t gonna save herself ya know). Be Jealous, when was the last time you played Starfox anyway? I picked it up the other day and killed the shit in 20 minutes. How  is it I can I remember where every power up is on a game I played 15 years ago but can’t remember simple things at work sometimes? *shakes fist at sky*

So part of my magical new TV in its autoprogramming glory found all of these MAGICAL digital channels. My remote has a decimal point on it! What else has been hiding from my periphery? It’s like when you find out that everyone you know orders a slice of cheese on their apple pie! Sounds crazy but its true and its as if the whole world is in on the conspiracy.

So you know I’m not totally hopeless, I’d heard of digital radio before; I just didn’t know about all of these magic channels. Some of them seem kinda JV. If only this opened TV up to Pump Up The Volume style pirate stations! But alas, we’re totally in a police state. Authorities have no heart for creativity. They want to teach you to be resourceful but once you figure out their little system they put you away. Specific example: some kids in Ontario, CA got busted recently for hacking into their schools computer system and changing their grades (WarGames?). Dude, if you’re smart enough to break your school’s security then that should be your pass from high school. What worldly knowledge to you need to know beyond that?

IT guys are loaded. Teachers make shit.

Oooooh…tight. As simple as this is I think it trumps the douche-owned Han Solo Carbonite desk. It looks awesome (very well crafted), can be used as very much needed storage for NESessories (i just made that up) and perhaps best of all, IT IS A FUNCTIONAL CONTROLLER! Snap!

Ok I got one more. It holds all of your NESessities. (hire me)

via Unplggd

So with the detoonings of Mario, Homer, and Jessica Rabbit by Pixeloo, its about time someone else got involved. But as opposed to a photorealistic rendering, Essenmitsosse throws down more of a photo-esque re-tooning of Mario’s reptilian nemesis. Click the image and be magically transported down the green tube to see and read more.

I’m having a bit of an evil week. And I think I’ve got the Beaker-Astley mashup trumped today. Ms. Piggy fucks the pain away.

What else is in the teaches of Ms. Piggy? Uh, what? Right, oh.
2 frogs for every pig.

The dude who runs pixeloo says untooned but I guess being around music forever makes me think that someone saying untuned is just trying to say detuned. So the 3rd in his series after Mario and Homer is Jessica Rabbit. I already know 2 girls in L.A. who, minus the disproportionately large tits, look exactly like Jessica Rabbit. I think he should have done a full body shot in this case. The people commenting on his site seem to think that Stewie from Family Guy is his next victim. I think he should do something a bit more expressive, like someone evil.

And perhaps a bit more interesting is watching him do it. Can you imagine having to work on photoshop like that everyday for like 10 hours? Man that would be hell…oh wait.

My hometown of Grand Island, Nebraska was known for years (and still is I believe) as a METH CAPITOL. For shame? Fuck No! I take it as a point of pride! Let me tell you what, buddy, for a town of 50,000 it’s good to be known for anything at all. Being the birthplace of Henry Fonda and the site of the “Night of the Twisters” just wasn’t keeping us going, it took the phenomena of blue collar workers, bored teenagers, and plenty of empty space to make us the absolute best place to make, sell, and distribute Crystal Meth. If it sounds like an advertisement, it is! My hometown was awesome! I wish that I could live there now… but still live in L.A. of course. Not because of the Meth but because it’s so fucking fun to watch!

My hometown is what I would call a very small pond. And in this pond there are many, many odd fishes. Kinda like when they build new unmanned submarines that can dive to parts of the ocean that have never been seen by man and there are all of those fish that have glowing lights and strange tentacles and bug eyes… same thing. Sometimes I wish I could go there to disconnect ya know? Just do like 2 designs a month just to pay my 300 bucks a month rent (FOR A HOUSE) and drink $1.75 Miller High Life at a dive bar. The only problem, almost all of the eligible females moved away and went to college never to return.

But it would also be great to live there because there is so much that you could do FOR a place like that. When I was growing up we had NOTHING to do. Seriously. We used to have to put on DIY concerts there because there was no place to play music. We had a venue for a while but the city closed it down (the alley was the restroom) and also the rent money was used for, wait for it… that’s right, METH!

When I lived there, I always told my friends, “Wouldn’t it be weird to be proud of where you came from?” and it was true. I hated the place, it did nothing for me or ANY of its youth and I ran away as soon as I could. But a couple years ago I realized that I was proud of where I came from because it was such a shithole. It motivated me to get out and see as much of the world as I could. Until I got trapped here (damnit). But I still have a sense of pride in knowing that I wanted to get out and do something with my life, and I think I did. I just bought my airline tickets for my 10-year high school reunion in July and I can’t wait to go back.

My favorite Post is Raisin Bran -wait! I take it back! I love Grape-Nuts. I like how deceptive they are. If they could talk (and to me they do) they would say, “I have it all figured out: I can call myself whatever the fuck I want to and it doesn’t matter. I know I kick ass, You know I kick ass. I’m simple, crunchy, and so full of fiber you can build a sod house out of tomorrows duke.” Also, they are expensive; but I think this is only to remind you that they are classy. “You want the good shit? Then you’re gonna have to pay good money for it,” they say. Except this one time I scored the huge box of Grape Nuts for like 2 bucks at Ralphs-woops, I mean Russ’. Shit, been in CA too long. Its all the same, Red Circular Logo, value card. Hmm, kinda like… Post (minus the value card). Ok I figured it out. Post/Ralph’s/Russ’s = The Illuminati / TheFreemasons / OpusDei / Scientology / Skull&Bones / GirlScouts. Conspiracy Theory solved. And it only took 100 posts. You know Russ’s is evil, just look at all of those ss’s. They speak Parseltongue there ya know.

That 2 dollar box of grape nuts lasted me through 3 gallons of milk and for the spring of 2006, I was a force to be reckoned with. Thanks to Grape-nuts. Why the hyphen? “Thats right, I’ve got a hyphen, jealous? what the fuck are you going to do about it?!”

Maybe Grape-Nuts is actually a last name? Like when families of distinction marry and want to carry on both names, cause like I said… classy. Unlike the Corn Crackos (sounds like Grand Island). They’ve got an addiction. The box even says, “Free Sample”. Because the first time is always free, kiddies.

I’d previously posted this guy’s “Real Mario” image. Well he’s not done creeping-us-the-fuck-out. Click the gif and behold a full size and fully “Tell ‘em Large Marge sent ya“-esque rendering of Homer J. Simpson.

To fill a bit of space in this post I would just like to say that I’ve been going to SouthParkStudios.com all week and watching old episodes that I have missed in the absence of cable and this show is still a consistent source of insight and offensive, disgusting humor. Watching this show without *bleeps* is changing my life for the better. Aside from the commercials it seems that all is right with the universe.

Except this guy is probably going to make all the South Park kids real next and ruin that too. Jerk.

… is Justice.

I don’t know if ALL of these graphics correspond to 80’s identity animations but I figured out about 10-15 of them. Sweet shit. It’s too bad that Justice only DJ’s (from what I can tell they never actually “perform” live.) This is based on friends seeing them play in shitholes like the Viper Room and at soggy festivals. DJ set only? Really? Hey frogs, pick up a keyboard or a robot suit, then we’ll talk. Wheres the Justice in the music world?

Here’s a video that I found with many of the source identities.

[via Core77]

I haven’t seen any Looney Toons since they decided they were racist, violent and caused all of the worlds problems. Yet today assholes are shooting up schools on a weekly basis. They haven’t had access to these cartoons, what are we blaming now?

Mel Blanc was a genius whose impact on society and entertainment is immesurable. How fucking dare they blame cartoons. Fact from fiction is much harder to discern when its coming out of a live human being. Blame your leaders, not your entertainers.

Fuck I’m clever.

Stock up now because by year’s end Polaroids will be a thing of the past. Like flash cubes and film discs and those large format instant cameras that we pretended were boats because they stopped making film for those before we were born but our grandparents decided that their old junk belonged in the toybox.

Certain drugstores and 1 hour photo huts in my hometown wouldn’t let you keep prints of YOUR photos that contained nudity or “questionable” content. You used to have to rely on Polaroids to help you remember what that stripper that gave you the herps looked like. Now you can snap all of the digital photos that your memory card can hold and print off near-perfect photos at home. You dirty bastard.

Coincidentally while I was looking for a photo of the Polaroid 1000 that my grandma had, I came across this flickr of Stripper audition photos from the 60s & 70s. It’s actually some Classy Stuff (mostly clothed).

Its just not the same anymore.

American Psycho came out in 2000 its easily in AliUptown and my top 10 favorite movies (and books). And apparently it took 8 years for it to make it to New Zealand. Those DVDs must have been on a really slow boat. Well this is an Ad for NZ tv and it’s pretty badass.

“These drugs are pretty weak. But I have a feeling that if we do enough of them, we should be alright.”

story via Copyranter.

It’s a couple days old but I just read about it on Losanjealous. How many times is this now? 4 or 5? I’ve lost count.

I used to love these guys so much but its really hard to give a shit anymore. I was just talking about junkies right? Mr. Weiland should have a full time sponsor on tour with him. It’s sad. Remember how fresh Core sounded even though people claimed Weiland sounded like Eddie Vedder? And how great was Purple? Scott found his own voice on that record and it was solid! How much greater was it that the album didn’t even have the word PURPLE on it ANYWHERE! It’s listed on places like Amazon as self-titled, but who in 1994 called it that?

These guys were sooo good live. Weiland may still be a showman, but he certainly hasn’t maintained any kind of edge to his songwriting. It seemed that after every album Scott would fuck up, quit the band or they would throw him out, he’d make something sloppy or the DeLeo’s would make something sloppy, and then they’d get back together and make an album just a little bit less good than their previous record until they weren’t putting out a quality product anymore. This proves that these guys were truly greater than the sum of their parts. And that is the definition of a band to me.

I couldn’t get into Velvet Revolver. I wish that Cherry Rose would have happened instead. That was the rumored project with the remaining members of Guns N’ Roses and Buckcherry frontman Josh Todd. But alas it wasn’t meant to be. Ok, I’ll admit it, I still kinda want to see STP again for nostalgia’s sake i guess. So i suppose we can start the chess clock on Weiland’s next drug Arrest.

Who wants in on the pool? I’ve got my money on possession and DUI for July.

Does anyone remember when MTV was really, really good. I mean, its fucking WORTHLESS now, but thats been common knowledge for nearly a decade. I think what made MTV brilliant “back-in-the-day” (I hate that term almost as much as “Old School”) was all of the fucked up/off the wall/surreal/nonsensical stuff that is now common place in places like [Adult Swim] and to an extent Comedy Central. I’ll rattle some of it off and as I do keep in mind that none of these things exist any longer so they are now a reason why mTV eats a big bag of assholes:

• Liquid Television: the bastion of Sick and Twisted Animation’s Revival which was basically [Adult Swim]. It birthed Beavis and Butthead, Æon Flux, MTV’s Oddities The Head, and was later born into Cartoon Sushi. There is so much creativity collected into this series that you can’t turn on the tv without seeing a descendant in motion graphics that every network now uses or commercials trying to out-weird each other. Without this show there would be no Daria, King of the Hill, Mtv’s Oddities The Maxx, The Brothers Grunt (You don’t know what the fuck i’m talking about), Ren and Stimpy…
• The Bumpers: “We’ve got Crab Legs, aaaah” Thankfully, YouTube is full of these old idents and promos. Bite Sized Brilliance. “I just blew my nose into the MTV logo, ya wanna see? … Well I didn’t want to show it to you anyway!”
• The Characters: Aside from the VJs who were all pretty rad until Simon Rex and Idalis showed up. (But for some reason I like Simon Rex now.) Donal Logue and Toby Huss’ (genius!) characters still sit in little corners of my brain singing to each other. On Friday I was leaving a bar and a girl was karao-killing Alanis Morrissete’s “Ironic” and as always, it made me think of Jimmy the Cab Driver. Oddly enough, 10 minutes later I walk into the liquor store next to Spaceland and “Ironic” was playing there as well, i shit you not. “It’s like going crazy, when you’re already nuts.” Its pretty much the reason I decided to post this. And isn’t it ironic, dont you think?
• The Sets: Watch this Alternative Nation clip of Kennedy and Tori Amos. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the backgrounds. Very “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” style of production design. I seriously wanted to live there. (Trivial Knowledge Diarrhea: Rob Zombie was a production designer for Pee-Wee)
• The Shows: This is going to sound strange but until “The Real World” showed up, MTV had SCRIPTED ENTERTAINMENT! Egads. So this is another of those “so I was leaving a bar the other day” stories but… I met this guy named Chip the other day and when I hear the name Chip I think about the MTV show Austin Stories. I know, you’ve never heard of it. But through the pure coincidence of living in L.A. the guy I was talking to actually was THAT GUY from the show. Beyond that The Jon Stewart Show (yeah it was great, you missed it), Apartment 2F, The State, Remote Control, Idiot Savants were also too good to live. And I wont talk total shit about the real world, the original concept was great but it could only really work for 1 season. After that it seems they cast the same show over and over until it dissolved into a house full of drunken cunts and douchebags.

I know I must be forgetting tons but I think you get my point. I was glued to a TV set growing up and am now unable to connect with humanity. -No, wait, the point I was trying to make is there needs to be a place for creative entertainment like what MTV had to offer in the 80s up to the mid-90s. Society is really missing out on there not being an MTV classic channel right now. And no, I didn’t forget. MTV used to play Music Videos, then M2 used to play music videos, then MTV2 used to play videos. Well you know what? Video Killed the Video Star when MTV and the music industry stopped listening to the audience and tried to tell them what they should like. In a way, their plan seems to be working, but then again thats why we are stuck with American Idol.