Madison Young is a real redhead and the first time I saw her naked I got to see her red pubic hair.  I was so surprised and delighted! I have heard of red pubes, but like with Unicorns I’ve never seen any in person before.  I’m so glad I have pictures to prove it, but they are NSFW so you’ll have to see them on StaggStreet when you’re home and prepared for the full splendor!

Pajo – Scream With Me (2009) [Black Tent] // Grade: B

If you’re anything like me you’ve probably listened to every Glen Danzig era Misfits tune about a thousand times over to the point where you love them, but you just don’t need to ever hear them ever again… OK, well not ever again. Enter David Pajo of Slint and Tortoise fame. Scream WIth Me is Pajo’s 3rd solo album under his own name and composed entirely of Misfits covers done like you’ve never heard them before.

10 Misfit classics are stripped down to their essences and re-recorded as soft haunting acoustic ballads. Pajo’s hushed voice crooning Danzig’s lyrics over nothing but a guitar plucking and tape hiss is not only beyond creepy but also add a whole new dimension to these already amazing songs. Pajo perfectly captures the essence of each track while completely reinventing it; It’s really quite something to behold… especially if you’re a fan of the Misfits and/or Lo-Fi Folk. My main complaint with Scream With Me is Pajo’s lack of diversity in how Pajo arranges and performs each track. As stand-alone covers they’re great and refreshing, but 9 strung back to back to back don’t offer enough variety the material offered itself to. Regradless, If nothing else, Scream With Me prove what we’ve always known… That these songs were always much more than simple 3-chord anthems.

I miss the days of the WWF. When I was growing up I looked forward to Saturday’s, when wrestling would come on TV all day. Man 80′s wrestling was the shit! Not the soap opera crap it is today. I mean granted, there were story lines that were followed, but back in the day wrestling was exciting to me. I had the toys. I had the entrance music. I had the Hulkamania T-shirt.

One thing I never really realized until recently though was how crazy the wrestlers really were. I mean if you watch interviews, these guys were off their rockers. Complete lunatics on and off the screen, but I guess that’s what made it all that much more entertaining. Especially when you’re 13. Nowadays you wrestle for a year in the hopes of becoming a freakin’ movie star.

The good people over at THQ Games sent me out a copy of Legends of Wrestlemania for the XBOX 360 to give away here on the Bloglin. Legends has it all from Steel Cage matches, Ladder matches, Kings of the Ring to the Royal Rumble! There are over 60 playable characters to choose from, including many 80′s faves like Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant, King Kong Bundy, Koko “B” Ware, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, The Junkyard Dog, and many more. Plus for all those characters who aren’t included, there is a pretty in-depth player creation mode so you can go to town adding in (Tip: look around online for creator formula) The Genius, I.R.S., Papa Shango or even Doink the Clown to the game. Its also compatible with Smackdown vs. Raw 09.

If you want to have this brand new copy of Legends of Wrestlemania simply be the first to answer these 3 questions correctly, and email them to bloglin@mishkanyc.com

1) Where did the first Wrestlemania take place?

2) Who was Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat’s opponent at Wrestlemania III?

3) What belt/title did Razor Ramon win at Wrestlemania X against Shawn Michaels?

Ancilla Tilia strips for Wakker Dier from Revolver on Vimeo.

PETA once again attempts to scare you into stop eating those delicious animals. This time, they ruin a perfectly good burlesque show by Ancilla Tilia in order to show how you people unethically treat fish.

YAWN.

Minsk – With Echoes In the Movement of Stone (2009) [Relapse] // Grade: A-

Post-metal? Maybe. Tribal Doom? Sure, why not. Neurosis-inspired? Definitely. Electric Wizard wannabees? I’ll give you that.

Minsk’s new album, With Echoes In the Movement of Stone is more or less all of the above. Sanford Parker of Volume Studios does it again. It’s that simple. He can take a band and shape them into a magnificent ensemble. Do they deliver? Oh hell yes! This is the most direct, precise and intense album I’ve heard in a long time. This album delivers what I’ve been looking for in new Stoner/Sludge/Doom albums, diversity and intensity. Most of With Echoes… hearkens to a slower High On Fire sans the album art of Arik Roper. In fact, that’s the only thing I dislike about the album. Yes I’m being picky, but If I saw the album artwork on a stand in a music store, I wouldn’t even think twice about it. Relapse’s marketing department needs to jump on that.

The tracks are complimentary in pace and rhythm. “Three Moons”, followed by the epic “The Shore of Transcendence” set the tone for the album. There are no hidden secrets or gigantic let downs and even the third track, “Almitra’s Premonition” keeps your attention throughout the entire 10 minutes and is only dwarfed by the closing track, “Requiem From Substance To Silence”. Much like their modern-day counterparts, cough Neurosis cough, I’m sure Minsk would and will be an epic live show. Overall, this album comes in at exactly 60 minutes and I could take another 60 anytime.

Please come back Jay, we’ll pass the bong!

The infinitely frustrating and nonsensical Fox network has done it again and dumped a great show into the infamous Friday Night Death Slot. Well, I suppose it’s an error to call Virtuality a “show,” since what was actually aired was promoted (barely) as a “one-time movie event.” That’s fucking depressing because as a stand-alone movie, Virtuality does not work. As a pilot, it works on several levels and presented enough set up material for a season’s worth of space-opera drama.

Here’s the deal: the show was conceived by Battlestar Galactica‘s producers Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor. It was only supposed to have a standard one hour pilot, but Fox enjoyed the idea so much that they decided to give it a feature-length introduction. Then Fox unexpectedly pulled the plug and the show never made it past the two hours aired on Friday night. And it probably never will. You’re just another victim, kid.

Full review after the jump.

(more…)

Chicago’s Algebra Suicide are another one of my favorite bands who unfortunately slipped through the cracks never to get the recognition their music deserved. Like fellow Digging For Fire entry for Los Microwaves, Algebra Suicide were just a little to ahead of their time in managing to craft the sort of off kilter sound artsy sound that today is almost commonplace. The duo consisted Lydia Tomkiw who used a speak song delivery to overly her poetry over her husband’s Don Hedeker’s minimal electronics. Surprisingly catchy in an art damaged sort of way, the easiest way to describe Algebra Suicide would be a marriage between the Velvet Underground and Suicide. Despite the very heavy inclination to be as artsy as possible, Lydia Tomkiw’s is actually quite an interesting storyteller. Her lyrics and voice create the perfect embodiment of the sort of joyfully muddled post-punk ideals that sees existentialism morph to nihilism and back again. And over Hedecker’s understated music Alegbra Suicide achieved a mix of rebelliousness and naiveté that is quite compelling.

Released in 1987 The Secret Like Crazy culls together tracks from their early 7″ and cassettes into a makeshift album/compilation. The band went on to release 3 full lengths, calling it quits in the mid-nineties on both the band and their marriage. Lydia Tomkiw released a solo album shortly after the break-up, worked on Poetry and even did some party/club promotion until finally fading away into obscurity. Lydia unfortunately passed away in 2007.

Algebra Suicide – The Secret Like Crazy

Jack White and Jimmy Page have joined Prince in dissing Guitar Hero . I’m sure this extends to Rock Band as well for those of you going “Yeah!, Fuck Guitar Hero! Rock Band Rulz!”. Both have recently been vocal in saying that video games are not the ideal way for their music to reach people during press junkets for the documentary It Might Get Loud. The film chronicles the power and influence of the electric guitar as told through the point of view of White, Page and The Edge.

Wake up you tools. Is it really that awful and belittling to your mighty egos that kids are getting their exposure to your music via video games? Or are you just that out of touch with how the world of entertainment and exposure works in the information age? So fucking what if a kid first learns about “Communication Breakdown” or “Seven Nation Army” via a videogame and goes and then downloads Led Zeppelin I or Elephant? Pray tell Jimmy, Jack what’s the ideal way in 2009 for a 12 year olds to learn about the White Stripes and Led Zeppelin?  You should be ecstatic that there’s something like Guitar Hero that is exposing millions of younger kids to countless great bands! And whether you like to believe it or not the game is actually driving up sales for musical instruments and encouraging Kids who have pushed the game as far as it will go to jump to the next level. That’s really fucking awful right!? A whole new generation of kids and teenagers once again interested in hearing and playing Rock music. Absolutely awful!

P.S. White Stripes songs not the most fun thing to play in Guitar Hero/Rock Band!

Curtis Armstrong and William H. Macy had a novelty band and they only did this one song, Dog Police.