We’re back again with our second installment of MANIC. our opening party was terrific and this one will only blow it out of the water! Memorial Day and a Svedka Vodka Open Bar from 10:30 – 11:30pm, how awesome is that! Everyone grab your eyeliner!

As much as I’d like to say what a celebrity did, wore or supported never had any effect on me it just wouldn’t be true. Growing up, the Beastie Boys were my epitome of what cool was. Not only did they introduced me to streetwear such as X-Large & Bape but their (now defunct) Grand Royal record imprint put out and introduced me to so much great music in the 90s like Bis, Atari Teenage Riot & even Liquid Liquid. So needless to say I awlays liked to keep wih whatever the Beastie Boys were involved in.

BS 2000 was a side project between Adrock & drummer Amery “AWOL” Smith (Suicidal Tendencies, Uncle Slam, Beastie Boys, Leftover Crack). Without sounding at all like the Beastie Boys it still was very Beasties-esque. The sound is catchy, buoyont and stripped down with most of the album being made on antiquated keyboards, samplers and drum machines. It’s equal parts New Wave, Hardcore, Lounge & Space Age Pop. Perhaps had you asked the Beastie Boys to make an Esquival album, this might be what it would have sounded like.

Despite Adrock’s presence and the Grand Royal stamp I’m sure it’s very lo-fi nature and bad cover art didn’t exactly help garner it a wide fan base. But then again, I don’t think BS 2000 was ever looking for mass appeal. This album was very obviously made solely to appease it’s musicians creative impulses. Unlike with most side project bands, it’s blatant self indulgence just really works and isn’t at all a detracting factor.

BS 2000 put out two albums both of which are out of print. Simply Mortified (their second album) came out on CD in 2000 while their first self titled release was only available as a vinyl from the Grand Royal website back in 1997 and is pretty hard to track down. I know because I’ve been looking for one for a while now.

I don’t know how or why it took so long, but listening back to Simply Mortified I was hit with how similar in sound BS 2000 was to Le Tigre/Julie Ruin. Adrock started dating Kathleen Hanna (now his wife I believe) in around ’97 which is right around the time she began working on her Julie Ruin solo album (following Bikini Kill’s break up) and he was starting BS 2000. It’s interesting to realize now just how much the two were influencing one another’s musical direction.

BS 2000 – Simply Mortified

WO m TH from TRACKUMA on Vimeo.

Great video from 100% Hardcore’s blog on Afromania.org. The competition went down in Osaka in what looks like a parking deck. I fucking love the way the Japanese have hooked their bikes up. Massive BMX Bars and long stems. Big ups to these kids for having a blast!

Reminds me of the bike-dancing scene from the blockbuster [heh] smash Quicksilver.

This weekend is the legendary Rumble Through The Bronx alleycat. Probably one of the most grueling races I’ve ever done. A lot of people think NYC is flat and easy terrain. That may be true in Manhattan, but in the Bronx, there are a lot of hills. Pair those hills with people who are generally confused by cyclists on the streets and a grueling 30 mile course and you’ve got one nasty race.

Last year, a friend of mine was involved in a 3-bike pileup wreck. He fucked his collar bone and we had to subway it back to Brooklyn so he could get medical attention. Rumble is no joke, as illustrated by the mind-blowing Ulgade artwork!

Pre-Register at 5borogenerals.com and spare yourself the hassle of registering the day of. They’ve also linked the course map as well since most people who live in NYC have never been to the Bronx as sad as that may sound

This is gonner be a good one. The first two bands are noisy Canadian groups and the second two are more along the lines of garage/powerpop. Cakeshop (Not “the” Cakeshop, just Cakeshop) is like a fort for friends and the thing is free so it doesn’t really matter. Show up for some rough and tumble action and sounds.

Lush – Ladykillers

Peter Gabriel – Shock the Monkey

George Michael – Too Funky

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – I Won’t Back Down

Genesis – Tonight, Tonight, Tonight

I love Countdown to Extinction, I’ll even go as far as aying that after decades of listening to Megadeth I truly think it’s their greatest album. Despite it’s obvious attempt to crossover, successfully doing so and subsequently then being labeled a “sell-out” album there was absolutely nothing awful  about Countdown to Extinction. It’s Megdeth’s Darkside of the Moon… Not the album you say is your favorite Floyd album if you want to raise some cool guy points, but in the larger scope of things is their greatest achievement. Asking a madman like Dave Mustaine to write a pop album is like asking Picasso to draw a Spider-Man comic, if you have an open mind it may just be the most amazing thing you’ll have ever seen/heard. Much like Metallica, Megadeth sacrificed some of their edge and bite in favor of melody and pop structure. But the difference between Megadeth and Metallica attempting to do the exact same thing is Dave Mustaine just doesn’t get how to… and I mean that in a good way. So you get something like Countdown to Extinction, an art damaged, concept driven attempt at radio-friendly Thrash Metal. In many ways it’s a lot like ESG, who thought they were just creating really awful Disco, but were in fact creating some of the best Post-Punk you’ll ever hear.

So what does any of this have anything to do with Youthanasia? Well in many ways Youthanasia is simply Countdown to Extinction part II. But the big difference this time is that Dave Mustaine is consciously trying to follow the same formula that made Countdown To Extinction so good and you just can’t do that! That’s not how the magic happens. The album starts off fucking amazing with Reckoning Day your typical “Holy fuck this album is going to blow my balls off” intro song to a metal album, much like Skin O’ My Teeth. It then goes to Symphony of Destr…err I mean Train of Consequences. And there you can start seeing my point. From then on in it just tries to recreate song for song some what was already perfectly done on Countdown To Extinction. So I’ve made clear what makes this album awful.. but what makes it so awesome? Well for one it’s Dave Mustaine and he is trying recerate a great album,  so some of these retreads are still quite enjoyable! AC/DC has basically has done the same album countless times with a majority of them being pretty fucking awesome so it can totally be done! And as I already mentioned, Reckoning Day is pretty fucking awesome! Train of Consequences is still good pop metal filler and A Tout Le Monde is well, um… amusing. Its all the songs around them that sink this album and make it hard to listen to. They’re all second rate versions of Countdown to Extinction songs that don’t offer a formula you can simply plug into and have it work well twice.

On an interesting side note: I remember seeing Megadeth on the old Jon Stewart Show when they were promoting Youthansia. In the audience that day were these two grizzled old metal heads who were so clearly wasted I have no clue how they got past securityand into the studio. At the end of Train of Consequences Megadeth started throwing out T-shirts into the crowd. These two dude started howling and begging Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman to toss them some tees. But they were all the way in the back and you can only throw a t-shirt so far! After they were out of tees to give away these two dudes got super pissed off and got up and started screaming “Fuck you Dave, you fucking alcohlolic! You deserved to be kicked out of Metallica you asshole!” This went on for a good 5 minutes until security could get up there and usher these dudes out of the studio kicking and screaming! Megadeth then went on to preform Symphony of Destruction and I think Hangar 18 after the taping was over. This was almost as good as seeing Dave Mustaine cry to Lars Ulrich about how he felt when he got kicked out of the band in the Some Kind of Monster (seriously the only reason to watch this movie).

About a year or two ago, popular author/nerd Jonathon Lethem and well-liked illustrator/comicker Farel Dalrymple teamed up to do a comic for Marvel called Omega the Unknown. Based on a series that reached ten issues before cancellation from 1977, Lethem and Dalrymple’s Omega is now on it’s seventh issue which features an amazing cover and some interior art by Gary Panter.

That is awesome to me. Three cheers for Marvel Comics for letting this happen. I probably don’t have to rattle off Gary’s resume but here goes anyway. He designed the sets and puppets for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, did three Zappa album covers, was part of Art Spiegelman’s Raw Magazine, created many amazing comics and makes psychedelic music and light shows. A big expensive two volume book of his work was just published and he is fucking awesome.

I needed to find something to post so that Prolly’s dildo helicopter video didn’t stay at the top of the Bloglin all day, but The Captain beat me to it with Bass Mopster!

Saw this flyer down the street from our office. I really do feel sorry for this guy!

This Friday, May 23 at LOVE; 179 MacDougal St.
The Captain and Math Head on behalf of Trouble & Bass
Advanced Tickets available HERE

And then Friday May 30th – Goon & Koyote visit LOVE