MAGIC         PORK

A while back, I posted about Grand Buffet. I haven’t been following them much since then, but looks like they came out with a new full-length album this year. I’ve listened to snippets of some of the tracks on Amazon and their sound is a little different. Not sure if I’ll like it as much as what I’ve heard from them before but I’ll probably give it a try.

The reason I’m thinking of Grand Buffet is that I was listening to them the other day in the car. During their song “Stocking Stuffer”, I heard one of the same rhymes that was used in “Maggie May”, which I critiqued in my previous post. They rhyme “pool” with “school” but in their case the lyrics make sense and don’t feel forced. So I thought I should post the lyrics to this song as an example of good lyrics. It’s a short song. Here they are:

Stocking Stuffer

Santa Claus once picked me up after school
We had some drinks, we shot some pool
Told me that he’s not a one woman man
He’s got a few, they understand
Over some dinner we talked about things
He ordered ribs, I got some wings
He said he fancied the girl in my life
Asked me if she could be his for a night
How could I say no to old Saint Nick?
He fills up my stocking with beautiful gifts

Santa Santa Santa
Got my girlfriend pregnant this Christmas
That’s not what I had on top of my wish list
Santa Santa Santa
Had a one night stand with my lady
This Christmas Santa Claus gave me a baby

I think it’s time for another post about bad lyrics. Almost two years ago, I griped about Silverchair lyrics in parts one and two. This time I’m going to complain about a much more popular artist: Rod Stewart. And a much much more popular song: Maggie May.

Some of you will be aghast that I would disparage such a great song but I think once you see what I have to say you’ll agree. Because I’ve convinced myself of my superior powers of convincing.

The tune of Maggie May is okay. I don’t get why it was such a success, but I think I’d be inclined to like it on the music alone. The subject of the song I don’t have a problem with either. I don’t know if it’s based on a real experience in Rod Stewart’s life, but it certainly sounds like an honest song about a real experience. But I just can’t get past the horrible lyrics.

Many of the lyrics in the song are fine, but then he’ll throw in some line that seems clearly like he was stretching for a rhyme. It just sounds so amateur. Then again, since the protagonist is a young uneducated kid, maybe that was the intent and he’s a more genius songwriter than I’m giving him credit for.

I’ll reproduce the lyrics here, commenting on the groan-inducing rhymes. Feel free to groan along at home.

Maggie May

Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you
It’s late September and I really should be back at school
I know I keep you amused but I feel I’m being used

Editor: Uggggh… amused/used. And who says “keep you amused”? In other words “I amuse you” but that wouldn’t rhyme so I’ll twist it around so that it does.

Oh Maggie, I couldn’t have tried any more

You lured me away from home
Just to save you from being alone

Editor: Not horrible… worthy of a wince but not quite a groan.

You stole my heart and that’s what really hurts

Editor: The last line of each verse doesn’t rhyme with anything, which I commend him on. I wish he had followed that policy for the entire song.

The morning sun, when it’s in your face really shows your age
But that don’t worry me none, in my eyes you’re everything
I laughed at all of your jokes, my love, you didn’t need to coax

Editor: WORST LINE OF THE SONG. There should be a room in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland for worst lyrics, and this should be inscribed over the entrance. I hear this line and I picture Rod in one of those typical movie scenes, bent over a pad of paper with a pencil in hand, surrounded by a hundred wadded up pieces of paper on the floor. “What rhymes with jokes?.. ‘Folks’? No.. ‘Smokes’? Hmm ‘You even let me bum your smokes.’ No.. ‘Cokes’? ‘Coax!’ Yes! You didn’t need to coax my love… but how do I get the word ‘coax’ at the end of the line? I know, I’ll just move the subject to the beginning of the line. Perfect! Moving on..” Hey Rod: your lyrics, they suck. I’ll use your technique on a line of my own: “You’re so lazy with your verses / My mouth, you make erupt in curses”.

Oh Maggie, I couldn’t have tried any more

Editor: As I said: lazy. You should be apologizing to us for not trying hard enough.

You lured me away from home
Just to save you from being alone
You stole my soul and that’s a pain I can do without

All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand
But you turned into a lover and mother, what a lover, you wore me out

Editor: ???

All you did was wreck my bed and in the morning kick me in the head

Editor: ???!!!! Either this guy is really really stretching for a rhyme or he was making love to a horse.

Oh Maggie, I couldn’t have tried anymore

You lured me away from home
‘Cause you didn’t wanna be alone
You stole my heart, I couldn’t leave you if I tried

Editor: Yeah we’re getting that whole lack-of-trying thing.

I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school

Editor: And take some grammar classes perhaps?

Or steal my daddy’s cue and make a living out of playing pool

Editor: Okay I admit the double-meaning of ‘cue’ is somewhat clever, but it seems he made up this “father is a pool player” thing just for a rhyme.

Or find myself a rock and roll band that needs a helpin’ hand

Editor: Here Rod, I think you dropped something… some syllables. Heh.

Oh Maggie, I wished I’d never seen your face

You made a first-class fool out of me
But I’m blind as a fool can be
You stole my heart but I love you anyway

Editor: This is the only decent verse of the song. It’s merely mediocre, not horrible.

Maggie, I wished I’d never seen your face
I’ll get on back home one of these days

Here’s where the song ends and you don’t get to hear Maggie’s response to being woke up by some lazy punk telling her she looks old, and he wishes he never saw her face, and she makes love like a large farm animal. Or perhaps his mother. That’s a shame, because I think it would have made for an interesting song.

Why isn’t this band more popular? Sometimes I’ll hear a good band but I realize they don’t have the type of sound that will make them hit it big, such as Architecture in Helsinki. But other times I’ll hear a good band and be surprised months or years later when they’re not popular. I’m not talking U2 popular, but at least Buckcherry popular. (BTW I saw Buckcherry at Water Street Music Hall last year. Most memorable moment was during “Lit” when they got the crowd chanting “CO… CAINE!! CO… CAINE!!”.)

Morningwood was one of those bands. I heard “Nth Degree” on some commercial and a TV show but then that was about it. There was also Hot Chip. The Warning is an incredible album. I also saw them live at Lollapalooza and they put on a great show. (If you follow that link to their MySpace page, check out “Over and Over” and “Look After Me”.) But how much later is this, and still they’re not well-known. (Note that I’m talking about in the U.S. not U.K. where they have more of a following.) Again - I’m not saying they should be topping the charts, but at least on the radar. Hearing “And I Was A Boy From School” playing in Express For Men doesn’t count.

The Subways are another band that I saw at Lollapalooza in ‘06 that I thought for sure would be bigger by now than they are.

But back to Under The Influence Of Giants…

More so than any of those other bands I mentioned above, this band has a perfect pop-rock sound. I first saw them on MTV. Yes MTV does still play videos, just at strange hours like 6 AM but with my TiVo I don’t care when they’re on. “Mama’s Room” was catchy, the band had a unique (well, uniquely retro) look, and the video had hot scantily-clad girls in it. What’s not to like there? I thought they’d just go up from there but whenever I mention them to someone I’m just met with a blank stare so I assume they didn’t get any Top 40 play. I really don’t get why. I read online that they were pretty popular downloads on iTunes but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about popular-popular not Internet-download-popular.

Go to that link above and click on the “Music” link. You can listen to the entire album online. So if you have a high-speed connection you have no excuse to not check out their music. If you don’t have a high-speed connection and you live near me, maybe I’ll let you borrow it. My favorite tracks are “Against All Odds” (not a Phil Collins cover), but it would be hard to pick a runner-up between “Got Nothing”,”In The Clouds”, “Mama’s Room”, and “Heaven Is Full”. That was a problem when I was putting together a playlist for a little get-together I had a few weeks back. I had to stop myself from adding the entire CD on there and have people say “who the hell is this band you keep playing??”.

Did you listen to them yet? Well what are you waiting for? I’ll be here when you’re done.

OK so now do you agree? They’re not going to make music history, but they’re catchy and fun and in my book there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a perfect CD to play in the car and bop along to while drumming my hands on the steering wheel. On an R.E.M. scale, I’d place their sound somewhere north of “Imitation of Life” but south of “Shiny Happy People” in its pop-ness.

Let me know what you think, or if you think they are popular and I’m just out of the loop.

I saw this great hip-hop duo perform at The Bug Jar this weekend. They’re from Pittsburgh and they’re called Grand Buffet. Their website isn’t very good and has broken links all over the place, but check out the tunes they have on their MySpace page. (Warning: probably goes without saying, but the site contains some naughty words that may not be suitable for work or people with values or whatever. But it’s tame for hip-hop.)

If you only have the time or inclination to check out one tune, try “Benjamin Franklin Music”.

I realize I haven’t written a post in a while. I’ve been traveling a lot. I was in Nashville for two weeks for work, then last weekend I was in Chicago for Lollapalooza. That’s not really an excuse because I had Internet access from the hotel in Nashville, but it sounded better than saying that I just didn’t feel like posting anything.

I still don’t feel like posting anything but I’ll give a quick update about the Lollapalooza trip. It was fun. I saw these bands: The Subways, Panic! At the Disco, Editors, The Raconteurs, Sleater-Kinney, Ween, Be Your Own Pet, Living Things, Wolfmother, Sonic Youth, The Flaming Lips, The New Pornographers, Sparta, Hot Chip, The Shins, She Wants Revenge, and Queens of the Stone Age. I also saw a bit of The Frames, The Go! Team, and 30 Seconds to Mars but I wasn’t very into them. The lead singer of 30 Seconds to Mars, Jared Leto, was just downright annoying.

We watched the first couple songs of Kanye West but didn’t stick around for him, and the last day Red Hot Chili Peppers played but we left before that started. I felt like we should have stuck around anyway just so we could say we saw them and I wouldn’t get any crap from RHCP fans. They have some good songs for sure, but I really didn’t care about seeing them and neither did Mike or Jane so we just left and had dinner.

The highlight for me was seeing Sleater-Kinney. They absolutely rocked. Now that they’re breaking up, I can only hope they’ll do a reunion tour sometime. My other favorite performances were The Subways, Wolfmother, Hot Chip, and Queens of the Stone Age. I’ll definitely try to go again next year.

I’m going to Lollapalooza in Chicago with Mike & Jane for the weekend of August 4-6.  They went before but this will be new to me.  Multiple bands perform at once (on different stages of course… although that would be interesting to see too) so I had to make some choices about which I wanted to see.  Lollapalooza’s site posts the schedule so you can plan out your days.  I don’t know what Mike & Jane’s choices will be but here’s mine.

Some of these bands I had never heard of before, but when I checked out their sites, I discovered that they were pretty darn good.  So now I’m excited to be able to see them perform.  I have a feeling I’ll be purchasing a bunch of CDs in the near future.  I know that I won’t be able to see all of these bands, since I’ll have to walk between stages and take breaks and such, but it’ll be my goal to see as many as I can.

Warning: don’t click on any of these links unless you are prepared to be jealous of what you’ll be missing!

Friday:

• Deadboy And The Elephantmen
• The Subways
• Aqualung
• Panic! At The Disco
• Editors
• Mates Of State
• The Raconteurs
• Sleater-Kinney
• Ween

Saturday:

• Be Your Own Pet
• Living Things
• The Go! Team
• Built To Spill
• Wolfmother
• Sonic Youth
• The Smoking Popes
• The Flaming Lips
• The New Pornographers
• Kanye West

Sunday:

• Boy Kill Boy
• Sparta
• The Hold Steady
• Hot Chip
• Pepper
• The Shins
• She Wants Revenge
• Queens Of The Stone Age
• Broken Social Scene
• Red Hot Chili Peppers

I know that Mike won’t want to see Queens Of The Stone Age because they’re playing at the same time as Wilco.  I could be persuaded to see Wilco instead, but the few songs of theirs that I’ve heard haven’t bowled me over.  I know, there’s a lot of people that would consider it blasphemy for me to say that, but it’s true.  Maybe I’ll have to borrow their CDs from someone and devote some more attention to them.

Sleater-Kinney just announced that they’re breaking up - or “indefinite hiatus”, whatever they’re calling it.  So this may be the last chance I’ll ever have of seeing them in concert.  They’ll be performing at the same time as Violent Femmes, which is good for me because I don’t care about seeing Violent Femmes.  But I imagine most of the concertgoers will want to see them, so maybe I’ll be able to get closer to the stage for Sleater-Kinney.

After I wrote about the horrible Silverchair lyrics in my last post, I went and listened to the album. I did it while doing some work, so I managed to not let the lyrics get to me too much, but once in a while a line would come through that was so bad I had to put my head in my hands and groan. Now I can’t get those songs out of my head. So why suffer alone when I can share my misery with you all?

Looking on the bright side, it’s good to know that the lead singer, Daniel Johns, never fantasized about committing suicide. I know this because he wrote a song in which he fantasized about committing suicide and there’s no hint of honesty in it.

Suicidal Dream

I dream about how it’s going to end
Approaching me quickly
Leaving a life of fear
I only want my mind to be clear

People making fun of me
For no reason but jealousy
I fantasise about my death
I’ll kill myself from holding my breath

My suicidal dream
Voices telling me what to do
My suicidal dream
I’m sure you will get your’s too

Help me, comfort me
Stop me from feeling what I’m feeling now
The rope is here, now I’ll find a use
I’ll kill myself, I’ll put my head in a noose

[Chorus]

Dreamin’ about my death, dream…

Suicidal, suicidal, Suicidal dream

Voices telling you what to do? So you want to kill yourself because you’re schizophrenic and voices are telling you to? But you also talk about people are making fun of you. And if you know that they’re only doing it because they’re jealous then would you really be considering suicide?

In contrast, here’s a good suicide song by Blink 182. I don’t know if these guys really thought about suicide, but it sounds much more realistic. (Just in case this topic is too dreary for you, it has a happy ending. Sort of.)

Adam’s Song

I never thought I’d die alone
I laughed the loudest who’d have known?
I trace the cord back to the wall
no wonder it was never plugged in at all
I took my time, I hurried up
the choice was mine I didn’t think enough
I’m too depressed to go on
you’ll be sorry when I’m gone

I never conquered, rarely came
16 just held such better days
days when I still felt alive
we couldn’t wait to get outside
the world was wide, too late to try
the tour was over, we’d survived
I couldn’t wait till I got home
to pass the time in my room alone

I never thought I’d die alone
another six months I’ll be unknown
give all my things to all my friends
you’ll never step foot in my room again
you’ll close it off, board it up
remember the time that I spilled the cup
of apple juice in the hall
please tell mom this is not her fault

I never conquered, rarely came
16 just held such better days
days when I still felt alive
we couldn’t wait to get outside
the world was wide, too late to try
the tour was over, we’d survived
I couldn’t wait till I got home
to pass the time in my room alone

I never conquered, rarely came
tomorrow holds such better days
days when I can still feel alive
when I can’t wait to get outside
the world is wide, the time goes by
the tour is over, I’ve survived
I can’t wait till I get home
to pass the time in my room alone

I just read online that the lyrics “I took my time, I hurried up / the choice was mine” is a reference to the Nirvana song “Come As You Are”, which has the lyrics “Take your time / Hurry up / The choice is yours”. You’d think I would have made that connection at some point.

Another good suicide song is “I Think I’m Going To Kill Myself” by Elton John. The lyrics are by his longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. Most of Taupin’s lyrics make no sense. Even he admits he doesn’t know what some of his songs mean. But this is one of his more straightforward songs.

I Think I’m Going To Kill Myself

I’m getting bored
Being part of mankind,
There’s not a lot to do no more,
This race is a waste of time.

People rushing everywhere,
Swarming round like flies,
Think I’ll buy a forty-four,
Give ‘em all a surprise.

Think I’m gonna kill myself,
Cause a little suicide,
Stick around for a couple of days,
What a scandal if I died.

Yeah, I’m gonna kill myself,
Get a little headline news,
I’d like to see what the papers say
On the state of teenage blues.

A rift in my family,
I can’t use the car,
I gotta be in by ten o’clock,
Who do they think they are?

I’d make an exception
If you want to save my life,
Brigitte Bardot gotta come
And see me every night.

At first glance, the lyrics may seem silly but that’s the point. He’s a petulant teenager who’s not seriously suicidal. He’s just pissed off at his parents and fantasizing about what it would be like if he could kill himself and stick around after his death to see all the commotion he caused. The music underscores the silliness of it because it’s an upbeat ragtime tune. It even has a tap dance solo in it. That whole Honky Chateau album is just great.

One more thing, not suicide-related. (I couldn’t end on that.) In my previous post, I mentioned that there was another artist I was going to discuss. That artist is Jewel. Now, I’m not saying her lyrics are bad. They’re okay. Just… okay. I mean it’s no Insane Clown Posse. Back when she came out with that collection of poems, A Night Without Armor, I thought “Wait a minute.. does she actually think her lyrics are good??!” I don’t know, I don’t read poetry and her book was a bestseller or something, so maybe it’s considered good. But doesn’t quite do it for me.

A while back, I posted some MC 900 Ft Jesus lyrics that I liked. Maybe I’ll post some more good lyrics in the future, but today I’d like to post some absolutely awful lyrics.

You remember that band Silverchair? Going to their website, it appears that they’re working on a fifth album. That’s a surprise to me because I only knew about their first two. Well at any rate, that “Tomorrow” song rocked, so back in college I bought their first album, Frogstomp. Don’t even act like you didn’t think that song rocked, because you totally did.

Well over the years I’ve hardly ever listened to that album. Not because of the music. The songs may not be that original, and I don’t listen to that early 90’s stuff much any more in general, but they can still manage to get me headbanging in my car. No, it’s because of the lyrics. They’re so bad it’s almost like it causes physical pain for me to hear them. (I would make a reference to Vogon poetry here, but that would make me look like a complete geek. Shoot, too late.) I’ll usually just see that CD on my shelf, or see the MP3’s in my iTunes/iPod and cringe and move on. But occasionally I’ll think “you can ignore the lyrics, give it another try”. So then I end up trying to enjoy the music while sending my mind to some far away place so it doesn’t hear the lyrics, usually to no success.

The thing is, I usually don’t even pay attention to lyrics. Some of my favorite songs, I don’t even know what the lyrics are because I can’t understand them and I never bothered to look it up. So when I say I can’t get past the lyrics, that’s how bad they are.

Here are the lyrics to “Israel’s Son”, which I got from their website. I warn you, it’s going to be painful.

Israel’s Son

Hate is what I feel for you
And I want you to know that I want you dead
You’re late for the execution
If you’re not here soon, I’ll kill your friend instead

All the pain I feel
Couldn’t start to heal
Although I would like it to

I hate you and your apathy
You can leave, you can leave, I don’t want you here
I’m playing this pantomime
But I don’t see you showing any signs of fear

All the pain I feel
Couldn’t start to heal
Although I would like it to
This time I’m for real
My pain can not heal
You will be dead when I’m through

[Chorus]

Pain and execution
Put your hands in the air
Put your hands in the air
The air… yeah

I am, I am Israel’s son
Israel’s son I am
Put your hands in the air
Put your hands in the air

It’s not the subject matter. I think it’s the fact that they’re trying to be profound, and failing so miserably, that makes them horrible. As you were reading that, did you think “that sounds like something a 16-year old would write during study hall after getting out of 3rd period Global Studies”? There’s a reason for that. They were 16 at the time. But they’re not going to get cut any slack here.

At my first co-op, some guy said that when he first heard Frogstomp, he felt the same way he did when he first heard Nevermind. He was that blown away by it. Scary.

Let’s share one more Silverchair song, shall we?

Pure Massacre

People dying for no reason at all
Age is no difference or if you’re large or small

Families being torn apart
Doesn’t have to be this way
Some people, just have no heart
It’s happening every day

Pure massacre
Pure massacre…

Machine guns pumping, hearts thumping
Death is all around
People crying for freedom
No one hears the sound

[Chorus]

There’s people crying
There’s people dying
But someone’s taken it all, yeah

[Repeat Last Verse]
[Chorus]

It’s gonna be a pure massacre
Yeah!

Oh man, that one hurt. There was one other artist I was going to talk about, but that took too much out of me so I have to end the post right here.

Last week, I was flipping stations in my car and on 90.5 FM WBER I heard some totally kick-ass song playing. I thought “this sounds like Tool… yes it’s definitely Tool… this is a new Tool song I’ve never heard before!!” I had heard they were working on a new album but I didn’t know that it was about to come out and that they had released a single.

I’ve been disappointed with WBER in recent years. It used to be my favorite radio station but these days when flipping the dial (does anyone actually have a dial any more?) I usually end up not caring for what they’re playing and skipping right past them. Is it just me? Is there just less good music being produced? It’s pretty sad that I end up listening to 106.7 KISS FM more than WBER. Five years ago, I would sometimes look at the Billboard Top 10 and not recognize a single song. Now you’re more likely to see me singing along in my car to “I’m N Luv (Wit A Stripper)” than listening to WBER. Hey, the chorus is really catchy.

WBER is the station that used to play the hell out of Limp Bizkit’s “Counterfeit” back before anyone had heard of Limp Bizkit. They played Insane Clown Posse’s “Halls of Illusion”, Disturbed’s “The Game”, etc. Not that I only like those sort of hard-edged songs. I also appreciate artists like Ben Folds, of whom they’re big supporters. But just seems like if they still play heavy songs, I’m missing it when I flip the dial because all I’m hearing are some whiny singers. You gotta mix it up a little.

So I was pleasantly surprised to hear WBER playing the new Tool song. I remember when Ænima came out in 1996. They played “Stinkfist” throughout the day and you could call when you heard the song and try to win the CD before it hit stores. I tried a few times but wasn’t successful.

In 2001 (the year they released Lateralus), a friend and I bought tickets to see them in Madison Square Garden. They were playing MSG two nights in a row. The concert was scheduled for mid-October. Then the attacks on September 11th happened, and things were getting shut down everywhere so we weren’t sure what was going to happen, but the concert went ahead as scheduled.

The opening band was Fantomas. Mike Patton from Faith No More was the lead singer. Maybe if I had heard them beforehand I could have appreciated the music more, but it was very odd music and just wasn’t doing it for me. But I sat quietly and let them play, unlike lots of others in the audience. Right after 9/11 I was hearing all this stuff about how nice New Yorkers are, and I was thinking “really? That’s not the stereotype that I’ve heard.” Well I don’t know if I can blame the fact that it was New York City, or maybe it’s just that there are a lot of rude Tool fans, but that was the rudest audience I’ve ever been in.

People were booing and screaming “YOU SUCK!”, “GO HOME!”, “GET OFF THE STAGE!”. They’d sometimes take a break during the songs but as soon as a song would end they’d start up again. Then there were the few Fantomas fans that would start screaming back “NO, YOU RULE! DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!” I was wondering if I was going to see a fight break out. Near the end of their set, there was a moment of relative silence in between songs. Must be the critics had tired of screaming. Mike Patton taunted the crowd by asking “So… got any suggestions?” Immediately the place erupted with boos again. They just listened to it for a little while before starting another song. I thought that was pretty funny. I only knew it was Mike Patton because I had looked up the band before going there. I bet most of the people didn’t realize that. I wonder if they would have treated them the same.

The next day we decided to walk to Ground Zero. I had only been to NYC once before and had never been to the World Trade Center. I think my friend had, but wasn’t sure how far away it was. So we just set out walking in the direction of it. Well now I know that Times Square (near our hotel) is a long way from Ground Zero! Although it wasn’t our intention, I think that made the experience more memorable. Even though we weren’t sure where it was, we could tell we were getting closer because streets would be blocked off, more police and emergency vehicles, military, and then we’d see buildings that were blackened and damaged. That was surprising to me because of all the images I had seen on TV, I hadn’t seen any of the buildings surrounding it.

They would build a platform later, but at the time people would be huddling by the intersections where you could see between buildings. I’m sure it annoyed some New Yorkers to have all these tourists inundating the place. We had to ask a cop for help figuring out which subway line to take back to our hotel, and he didn’t seem too pleased. Can’t really blame him.

Sorry for that tangent. It was a bit of a downer. Back to Tool! About a year later, WBER was giving away tickets to see Tool in Buffalo and I won! They were excellent live both times.

Now they finally have come out with another album, 10,000 Days. I’ve listened to it a few times and it’s super duper Tool-rific! (I got it for $9.99 at Best Buy.)

WBER is having another fund drive (they’re a non-profit station). I donated last time they had one, but was thinking I might not this time. But just because they still play Tool, even though more mainstream stations like 94.1 The Zone do too and that usually means WBER won’t touch them, maybe I’ll give them a little something.

When I posted about Morningwood, I should have received a deluge of comments about how awesome that band is. I did not. I had two friends post comments basically telling me (if i may paraphrase) “well, they’re not the suckiest band I’ve ever heard”.

I’m left to assume that the rest of the throng of Magic Pork readers felt that it was so obvious how right I was that they didn’t need to chime in to echo that. In fact I think that will be my assumption with my posts going forward. But just so you know, I always welcome comments about my supreme rightitude.

So I’ll move right along and mention a couple other bands. These aren’t anywhere in the same league as Morningwood. But I think they sound interesting, have some catchy songs, and I love their names so I have to give them points for that.

Say Hi To Your Mom is mellower that I usually go for but I’m digging them. On their site you can download some full MP3’s. My favorites are “Let’s Talk About Spaceships” and “Yeah, I’m In Love With An Android”. The latter has a great line: “She beeps for me every time it’s time to go water the fern”. Also check out their bio page which is really funny.

Architecture in Helsinki has a pop sound, but it’s kind of… weird. I don’t feel like trying to describe it, just check it out for yourself. Song clips stream when you enter the site, and you can control them at the top right of the page. Plus there’s videos which for me always would play all choppy. “Do The Whirlwind” is my favorite of theirs.