LOVE IT TO DEATH

Alice Cooper - Love It to Death (1971)


Everything came together for Alice Cooper on their third album, "Love It to Death". Their early albums were shitty psychedelic acid rock affairs that showed no comparison to "I'm Eighteen".

This record is an incredibly consistent listen from beginning to end, with the garage rock of "Caught in a Dream", and "Long Way to Go". Also is the mind blowing nonsense of "Black Juju" which may be on ground for people yelling "Get off the fucking stage!" as it is Alice's answer to Pink Floyd and the Doors with hypnotic chanting and all. This record was the beginning of a string of classic releases from the original Alice Cooper group.

RUINATION

Job for a Cowboy - Ruination (2009)


Job for a Cowboy - Ruination

I've been told that a lot of people hate Job for a Cowboy. Hearing this information blows my mind. How can a heavy metal fan not like this band? They are redefining the genre.

Their second full length, "Ruination" is the soundtrack to the apocalypse. I hate to use a cliche word to describe this band, but it is fucking brutal. Vocalist Johnny Davy expands his range sounding like two different people. The drums sound like the blasting of dynamite, which are extremely important on this record.

On the standout track "Constitutional Masturbation", Davy screams:

"Sexually abusive torture
Is diminished to mere wretched amusement
Ordered to fragment the sanity
Of prisoners of an artificial war
Amidst a country of dystopia
With this power he banishes his followers
And sentences them
To his own personal sins
He masturbates on the scriptures
That hold his kingdom together
As one and lays it to shame."

Maybe people on the death metal message boards trash this band because they like to please their audience.

TROUT MASK REPLICA

Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica (1969)



"Trout Mask Replica" is a true masterpiece. It is difficult, it is rough, and it is fascinating. A mesh of delta blues, free jazz, R&B, garage rock, and avant-garde. With its jagged guitars and stuttering rhythm section, Captain Beefheart sings the delta blues like a werewolf howling at the moonlight.

Produced by Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and his Band rehearsed for 12 hours a day in house with the windows blacked out, the record was recorded in under five hours.

The songs flow, unlike a lot of the carefully crafted jazz-rock bullshit that was around this time. Cap rants and recites poetry. "Tits tits the blimp the blimp / The mother ship the mother ship / The brothers hid under the hood / From the blimp the blimp…. all the people stir / ‘n the girls' knees tremble / 'n run 'n wave their hands / 'n run their hands over the blimp the blimp…".

This record laid the groundwork for countless rock experiments, especially the post-punk and new wave. It also proves what is possible for rock music.

YOUNG LOUD AND SNOTTY

Dead Boys - Young Loud and Snotty (1977)



Punk emerged about a decade before I was born, but when I put on the Dead Boys' debut album "Young Loud and Snotty" it feels like I have always been apart of the exciting groundbreaking scene.

As soon as the record starts with its classic opener "Sonic Abuser" (which contains phased-out drums...possibly the only punk band who could get away with this) I instantly travel back in time to 1977 in downtown New York City and I am at the legendary CBGB'S. I, along with everybody else around me looks and smells like shit, but I am witnessing history.

I truly feel that I was either born at the wrong time, or I was a punk rocker in some previous life. This is my proof that reincarnation does exist after all.

Front man Stiv Bators sneers his way through the record. He is one of most's charismatic front men in rock & roll, and also, in some cases, extremely overlooked.

"Ain't Nothin' to Do" is the perfect "bored with nothing to do, I must fullfill my life" anthem (after "Bored Teenagers, of course) as Bators snarls his way through like a rabid dog.

This is a great rock record that still punches you after 32 years.

Great Albums

Joy Division - Closer (1980) I love "Unknown Pleasures", I think it's flawless, but I love "Closer" even more. I find it interesting that they named it "Closer". For one reason, they were closer to how they wanted to sound, and it was their last album. Did Ian Curtis know it was going to be the last thing he was going to record? The album's opener, "Atrocity Exhibition" is a perfect way to start an album. Stephen Morris' circular drum beat heavily influenced by Can sounds like a drum beat from hell. Bernard Sumner's guitar sounds like a chainsaw that is teeth grinding. Peter Hook's bass is steady, while Ian Curtis' voice is strained and agonized. My favorite track "Passover", is Joy Division at their best. The drums sound like they are under water. Hooky's bass does not sound like a bass. Ian's lyrics are devastating in this one as he sings "This is a crisis I knew had to come/destroying the balance I kept". "Twenty Four Hours" is jaw-droppingly wrenching. "Isolation" sounds like if Kraftwerk would ever get depressed. The last track "Decades" is a requiem.

Brain Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978) When people classify music such as "new age" it makes me cringe. I think of cheesy keytar "Zen Garden" things. But Brian Eno's "Music for Airports" (it's not new age!) is a beautiful ambient masterpiece. It completely rejects conventional sounding music, but at the same time it is very conventional. It's beautiful. It's an album I love to put on while I'm taking a bath. It's experimental, and atonal at times, but it's not just an intellectual exercise in being weird. It's pretty, and it never lands on Earth. It sounds like it was made by aliens. I've always wanted to put it on while I'm in an airport where everybody is running around and freaking out like "Oh shit, I missed my flight" and I would be totally calm and be like "Hi....I'm in a different space."

Slayer - Reign in Blood (1986) As a drummer, hearing this album is a wet dream. Dave Lombardo's lightning bolt speed playing on the album's opener "Angel of Death" will kick the shit out of you. The first time I heard this album I was about 14 or 15 years old, and hearing "Jesus Saves" at that age is impossible to describe. It changed my life forever. When I first heard this album I thought, "I want to be a metalhead." Slayer made metal cool again. Around 1986, metal was not cool. Metal kids smoked pot in the bathrooms at school and looked like shit, and the punks would beat the shit out of them everyday. But Slayer combined elements of hardcore punk with heavy metal and both punks and metal kids could smoke pot together.

The Cure - Disintegration" (1989) If somebody held a machete up to my throat and said "You must pick your number one favorite record of all time", I would probably pick this one. Though it was released when I was only two years old, I heard it when I was 14, and it shaped me for who I am: a sensitive romantic. The Cure were at their peak when this album came out. There are plenty of pop songs ("Love Song", "Lullaby", "Pictures of You") but the title track is goth rock at it's best. Robert Smith pulls out my heart when he sings "I never said I would stay till the end". It makes me cry every time I hear it, and I've heard it countless times, and it is probably my favorite song of all time. This record is the reason why The Cure is my favorite band.

PLEASE KILLL ME by Legs McNeil

At the moment I am reading PLEASE KILL ME: THE UNCENSORED ORAL HISTORY OF PUNK by Legs McNeil. It is brilliant. It dished the shit on everybody and everything. I can smell the sweat, piss, and beer while reading these stories told by the punk disciples: Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, memebers of the MC5, the Ramones....that's just a few.

This book doesn't bullshit. If you are interested in punk, even if you're not READ THIS BOOK. It is a necessity to have in everybody's book collection.

What Happend to My Rock & Roll?

Rock music is dead to me now. It has lost it's excitement. There is no rebellion in rock music anymore. The majority of new music is unlistenable. This generation has no good music. Nobody does new and exciting things anymore (with the exceptions of a few I can think of: Xiu Xiu, Deerhunter, Antony and the Johnsons, TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand, Kings of Leon, MIA, to name a few). Everything has been done. It's history. All the new music is fucking boring. Rock music is now "pop-punk" (what a regurgitating term) and shit I've heard over and over and over again for the past 15 years. and mainstream hip-hop is disgusting. At least my generation spewed out some good music (Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails), and a few bands before my time are still writing good music (Bob Dylan, The Cure, Neil Young to name a few).

The state of music nowadays makes me sick. We have such atrocities as "Guitar Hero"--don't even get me started on that. People don't buy CD's anymore (though vinyl is making a slow comeback), causing many stores to close their doors. People don't even care if their music sounds like shit or not, they'll just download everything.

I don't care about any new music, except the artists I listed earlier. I can't even listen to anything anymore. I cannot stand Pink Floyd, Radiohead is dull and boring to me, and Coldplay makes me want to slam my head into a blender. The majority of music I listen to nowadays have broken up when I was in diapers, or their singers have died before my parents were even married.

I still enjoy making music, but I want to make something that is so anti-music, so anti-rock.

I like music that is ART. Music that makes you think. Music that makes you say "Hey, I've never heard anything like THIS before."