What Just Happened Here?!?

Since the appearance of this blog has changed so radically in the last several hours, we thought we should offer an explanation in case you’re wondering just what is going on here.

Sometime during the wee hours of August 9, 2010, the theme and background appearance of this blog was unceremoniously changed to an icky green, soft-lens close-up shot of a bug on a leaf. We didn’t change it, yet it doesn’t appear that the site was hacked. As far as we can tell, all the content here remains intact: it doesn’t appear that anything was lost. And our original template has mysteriously disappeared from the WordPress menu of available blog templates. Which is too bad – when we first began this site in April, 2007, we chose that one not only because it was fairly intuitive, flexible and reader-friendly, but because it featured a shot of one of our hometown jails, the New York Correctional Center (formerly the Bernard R. Kerik Correctional Center, until Rudy Guiliani’s former police commissioner was sent off to jail and the signs were changed in the middle of the night…kind of like what happened at this blog!). What better image for a blog about edgy music?

Desperate to get rid of the icky green leafy theme, we perused the off-the-shelf WordPress templates and discovered this one, which isn’t as reader-friendly as our original choice, but at least it has room for all of our features. If we can find another one that makes a better fit, we’ll switch to that (WordPress is very handy that way). So not to worry – we’re still here, still up to our usual shenanigans, check back for new content coming in the next few hours.

Interview with a Lucid Culture Founder

While we’re busy in the back working on the big if largely invisible revamp here, if you’re really interested, here’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek version of how this here blog got started, via the new and interesting guitar blog jemsite (which you might want to bookmark if guitar is your thing…or if like the Lucid Culture spokesperson here you happen to play an Ibanez…)

Maybe It’s the Beef After All

Regular readers will recall that we’ve been following the baseball steriod scandal off and on, if only for some badly needed comic relief. When Congress creates such an entertaining distraction, one has to wonder what nefarious things the Bush regime is up to while the world holds its breath waiting for Special Agent Jeff Novitzky to lower the boom on Roger Clemens.

But people are getting bigger. Maybe Clemens, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and the rest of the New York Yankees (and other teams’ players) implicated in the scandal really are telling the truth. Maybe it’s the hormones in the beef. A recent AP report examining municipal water supplies contaminated by prescription drugs cited one instance in Nebraska where fathead minnows downstream from a factory beef feedlot had noticeably lower testosterone levels and small heads. The cause? Trenbolone, the same anabolic steroid that the Yankees’ Jason Giambi used to bulk up so he could hit all those home runs. As it turns out, factory feedlot cattle – the source of most beef in the US – have implants in their ears which supply a steady stream of the steroid, making the cows bulk up in the same manner as the sixty-odd ballplayers named in the infamous Mitchell Report.

Have you lately been subject to fits of unexplained, uncontrolled rage? Get an overwhelming urge to drive three times the speed limit, even in a school zone? Has your hat size grown threefold in the past decade? Do people behind you at concerts always ask you to move because you’re so damn much taller than they are? Maybe it’s time you got your water tested.

And by the way, all that business about Clemens being at Jose Canseco’s barbecue? It’s true. See, we were there. At least that’s what Special Agent Jeff Novitzky said we have to say, or else we’re getting audited. All those free cds, free tickets, guest lists, wine, cheese and countless beers from everybody who wants to be reviewed here? That’s income. So unless you have a video of the entire Canseco picnic, don’t expect us to say we weren’t there listening raptly to Canseco’s and Clemens’ wives comparing the fine points of breast implants*.

*supposedly this actually happened

Wishful Thinking: Led Zeppelin Live on West Ninth St., NYC 11/26/07

[Editor's note: we're going to let this writer get away with this just this once]

The concept was beyond ludicrous: the world’s most popular heavy metal band (maybe the world’s most popular band, period) schedules their first New York show in almost thirty years outdoors, for free, on a side street in the West Village. No matter that it wasn’t advertised or announced to the public: I learned about it about four hours earlier from a friend, who got a phone call from a friend in the union who was setting up the sound equipment. One can only assume that a few more phone calls would be made, and in a few minutes’ time a flashmob the size of several ocean liners would clog the westside streets, requiring a police presence sufficiently gargantuan to protect the band and the lucky few who made it inside the “security zone” hours before the band went on. Which is why I didn’t cancel my two scheduled afternoon appointments: after all, I had no expectation that I’d get to see the show. Or that it would happen at all. Altamont, by comparison, was a brilliant idea.

But curiosity got the best of me, and a few minutes after the 4 PM scheduled start time, I decided to get off the train a couple of stops away from where I was going so I could scope out the neighborhood, just for the hell of it. When I exited the subway, the sky was dark and ominous. It had been cold all day, and threatening rain. For that reason, it wasn’t surprising to see the streets pretty much empty of pedestrians. There was also absolutely no police presence. Or any sign, audible or otherwise, that anything was happening. I kept walking, and suddenly I began to hear music in the distance. It was the bassline to Kashmir. Could this be true? I was loaded down with gear but I must have started running. I don’t remember. I was in a dream state. When I reached the end of the block, there on the sidewalk, playing through their amps (Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones had huge 4X12 cabinets) was Led Zeppelin. The only thing going through the PA was Robert Plant’s vocals, amplified by a couple of medium-sized JBL speakers, like the kind you see at street fairs. For a band whose reputation was built on volume and grand gestures, they sure were quiet, especially considering the size of the amps they were using. But the most unbelievable thing about this was that it was happening at all. There wasn’t a cop in sight, nor was there any kind of canopy over the band, who were facing possible electrocution in the event that the rains finally came. By my count, there were about 200 people assembled, a mix of old hippies and working-class metalheads all watching silently and reverently from a distance, even though anyone could have gone right up to the mic and ripped it from Plant’s hand if they so desired: there were no barriers or bouncers. The band didn’t even have a stage to play on: the sound mixer was perched on a stoop behind them. Was it possible that not a single person who knew about this spilled the beans to anyone who would have then IM’d their entire address book in seconds flat? Or was everyone here on the same page as I was? After all, I didn’t tell anybody about this because I had no plans to be here in the first place. And what about all the people in the surrounding buildings? Maybe they heard the low volume and assumed that it was just a Zep cover band practicing. After all, it was all but impossible to hear anything but the bass just a couple of blocks away, and the songs they were playing were all pretty iconic: most musicians know how to play them, at least the central hooks.

After Kashmir, the rest of the band sat out while Jimmy Page played Tangerine, solo. He did it thoughtfully but deliberately, without hardly any of the ostentatious vibrato that is his trademark. This was Page’s show, a clinic in dynamics. He didn’t cut loose too much, so when he did, the effect was spine-tingling. His guitar had three necks, looking like a prop straight out of Spinal Tap: one with six strings, one with twelve, and one with bass strings (which he never used). Jones is still a groovemeister, and had a clavinet to his right that he played on Stairway to Heaven. Plant’s voice is shot: his upper register is completely gone, but that’s a blessing in disguise, since he can’t overemote anymore. He just stuck to the melodies, using what little range he has left, and in a sense he’s never sounded better. The new drummer played a simple seven-piece kit: kick, snare, a couple of toms, ride and crash cymbals and hi-hat. He wasn’t amplified, so when the music got loud, it was impossible to hear him. He didn’t even try to do any of the complicated double-bass stuff Bonham used to do, although it was clear that he was a good timekeeper and seemed to be locked with Jones when the two were both audible.

After Tangerine, they picked up the pace with The Ocean, then followed with some of the more obscure tracks from Physical Graffiti. Since I’d gotten there late, I missed what could have been the first two or three songs, which conceivably could have been big radio hits like Whole Lotta Love. They closed, predictably, with Stairway to Heaven. When they got to the big guitar break, Jones, who still had his bass hanging around his shoulders, left the keyboard and jammed with Page. At the end, they brought it down to just the vocals and the clavinet. The crowd was completely silent for a second or two, then breaking out into polite applause. Not what you’d expect at a heavy metal show.

“Go ahead and put some money in the tip bucket,” Page growled at the crowd, motioning to a big green bucket to his left that looked like it had held flowers and sod until a few minutes previously. “Or buy us some beer.” As if on cue, at least a couple dozen audience members made a beeline for the deli on the corner. Meanwhile, I was trying to recapture the whole experience, wondering how I could relate here what I’d just experienced, if I could remotely do justice to such an exhilarating, completely unexpected performance. Sadly, I never got the chance to figure that out, because that’s when I woke up. This, then, is the best I can do. Now before you get all worked up and upset at me for writing this piece, just think for a minute about how depressing it was for me to return to a waking state from a dream like this.

Dirty Bomb Hysteria 8/11/07

Relax. There aren’t going to be any dirty bombs going off. It’s all a conspiracy theory.

In order to build a bomb with sufficient nuclear material to do real harm, you need to get your hands on the stuff. Sure, there’s plenty of it around, particularly in the former Soviet Union. There’s just one complication: it’s radioactive. Nuclear waste any more potent than, say, what the dentist gets rid of from his or her x-ray machine, is so lethal that unprotected exposure will kill you in a matter of hours. So if you’re planning on becoming the nuclear Osama Bin Laden, you better come equipped, with garments and gear and a high-tech facility that will cost you millions if not billions. Where you’re going to get all that stuff without tipping off the authorities is a mystery you’ll have to solve first.

Or, let’s say you’re in a hurry to get your 72 virgins and you can’t wait for the protective gear to come through. In that case, you’re going to need a new fanatic for every four hours that the stuff is in your hands. And unless you’re getting your hands on a domestic supply – fat chance of that, unless you’re buying from the same people who brought us 9/11 – you’ll have to come up with a team of suicide drivers, suicide pilots, a fleet of trucks and at least a couple of planes to get you across whatever ocean is in your way since everybody on the first plane is going to be dead about, say, halfway across the Atlantic.

The likelihood of any organization, even the CIA or Halliburton being able to pull this off? Figure it out. To say that the odds are against it is the understatement of the year.

And even if somebody decided to steal your neighborhood dentist’s x-ray waste box and blow it up somewhere, that stuff is so low-level that even if you were downwind of the bomb, you wouldn’t be in any more danger than you would be from drinking New Jersey water. The dirty bomb is a hoax, an urban myth, a conspiracy theory. It’s just another Bush regime fearmongering tactic designed to encourage you to give your Constitutional rights away in the name of security and bring us one step closer to a 1984-style police state. Don’t buy it.

Tornado Hits Bay Ridge: Where Is OJ Simpson When We Need Him?

As reported in today’s NY Times:

“According to the National Weather Service, a tornado touched down in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn just after 6:30 a.m. and traveled northeast, damaging homes and tearing the roof off a Nissan car dealership before dissipating.

The tornado forced the evacuation of 20 buildings, leaving 32 families without shelter, the city buildings department said. Another 50 buildings experienced some damage.

On 58th Street in Sunset Park, Lanie Mastellone watched her ceilings collapse one by one. ‘Then when I opened the door to get out of the actual apartment,’ she said, ‘that’s when I realized I had no roof.’

Jeffrey M. Warner, a meteorologist at University, said that the tornado was the first one to hit Brooklyn since at least 1950, when modern record-keeping began. It was the first tornado to hit New York City since 2003, when a weak tornado touched down in Staten Island, and only the sixth tornado recorded in the city since 1950, Mr. Warner said.”

 I missed the Shaolin tornado but ever since I saw that waterspout over the Hudson in 2002, I knew it only had to be a matter of time.

 Manhattan, next? Hollywood must be waiting with bated breath.

What’s the opposite of a towering inferno? A towering…waterspout?

 Maybe OJ can revisit his old role and finally get the exoneration, the “rehabilitation,” the requisite Oprah appearance and book deal with whoever’s taken over from Judith Regan…

.

The Green

Is brought to you by BP and Lexus… two companies really striving to make sustainable economics possible…

Along with our pop star friends, who are quite happy to take our money in order to promote something about which we could give a shit.

Why else would energy companies give a shit – unless they were making a shitload?

Green, green. Go, Go.

Just like Bono wanks his mojo.

But what is really green?
Local agriculture.
Not driving a car.
Not consuming in any way that our grandiose culture expects.

What is really green?
Not allowing ’first world’ trade agreements to impoverish the rest of the world
Not letting us grow so much fucking corn.

Not letting us abandon agriculture
Just to pass a few dollars around some useless dicks.

Those dicks now spew on the rest of the world whether we like it or not.

GMO

Crops under patent, even if it’s just in the bees.

It’s really up to Bono to save us – ‘The Green’

environmentalism for the challenged…

because at this point do we really have a brain cell?