Did you guys know I was some way or another involved in the music industry for more than 10 years?
I sort of hate music now, it’s pretty amazing. I shoot dance parties every day, and hang out with all these well known DJ’s and stuff, but I completely hate all the music. I am like an old man. I only listen to records and mostly 70’s Soul and R&B records. Do you know what was on my record player when Teddy Pendergrass died? Teddy Pendergrass. I am like a 50 year old man. The only reason I know what a Vampire Weekend is is because one of them was this little fat kid everyone used to pick on in high school. He was in my brothers class and I am pretty sure they hated each other.
But I used to love music. Seriously love it. It was the only thing in my life. I thought I would be a 50 year old man in a mosh pit up until I tried to go into a mosh pit at 25 and was sore for two days. When I was a little kid I wanted to be in a Monkees cover band. When I was in the 5th grade I managed a fake band called No More Freedom. In 1994 when Kurt Cobain died I carved a K into my arm with a mechanical pencil. A month later I was given my first Black Flag album. A year later I was in high school and started a punk rock club. We put out a little shitty zine which over the next 4 years became a pretty big shitty zine. In 1995 I started a record label and released a record, two tapes and a CD and an unreasonable amount of random merch. In 1996 I started shooting punk bands which led to an eventual career in photography. For the next 8 years I shot pretty much nothing but bands. When I went to college at Penn State in 1999 I was totally disconnected from everything and my closest musical outlet was hanging out these hardcore kids who had a campus radio shot that I would help out with. Luckily 1999 was when Napster was at it’s peak and I downloaded every song I had ever heard and thousands more. After two years of Hell at Penn State I moved to Richmond, VA where I started booking shows again and started shooting noise, punk and thrash bands. In 2003 I was in a shitty dive bar when I witnessed two college freshman play weird pop music out of a little box. It blew my mind and a month later I was their manager. I managed the Gaskets from 2003 until they broke up in 2008. During that time I helped them release two records, booked hundreds of shows, sold their merch, ran their website, drove them all over the country and produced a live DVD of their first performance with a full band. The DVD took me 18 months to put together and we spent $5000 on it. I have never put more energy into anything in my life. It is my crowning achievement. We sold less than 200 copies. I have 500 copies of it in my kitchen. After the Gaskets broke up I realized at some point I stopped liking music. I figured from 1994 to 2008 I probably have seen around 2000 sets of bands and probably 1500 of them have been fucking horrible. I just can’t stand in the back of a room waiting for a band to play any more. It is really sad. The only music I ever want to listen to is music I have already heard before. Still, we try to move on. I try to have a socially relevant blog, and that means pretending to like hip shit that the kids are into. You crazy kids you.
So, in order to stay super relevant and “in the know” without hiring 20 year old interns (just kidding Nicky, I know you know what’s up) I am going to post some music that other people have told me I should like.
Let’s start with Hussle Club. Fortunately Hussle Club is awesome and I love Prince Terrence. What you should do, is just go back and read what I wrote about Hustle Club a few weeks ago, and then appreciate the fact that he finally has music out that you can download. Seriously. This song is called “I Have High Expectations For What I Want To Be But In The Mirror I Don’t See Them Staring Back At Me” and despite the pretentious and unfortunately long title, it is really great. The Mp3 is below, and there are remixes of it here. I am pretty excited for Terry’s album and you should be too.
hussle-club-i-have-high-expectations-for-what-i-want-to-be-but-in-the-mirror-i-dont-see-them-staring-back-at-me.mp3
Nextly, we have Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers. Not quite as clever a title as the Grey Album but I downloaded this full length Wu-Tang/Beatles mash-up today and it is pretty fantastic. I don’t really have any idea who Tom Caruana is, but he seems to have put together a pretty great record. I was a big 36 Chambers fan and then I sort of gave up on Wu-Tang until Ghostface’s Fishscales album and most of the Wu-Tang stuff is off their later albums, but it sort of makes me want to pick up Wu-Tang Forever again. I wish there was a bit more Beatles vocals on it as I am a life time lover of the Beatles, but when the Beatles sing back up to the Wu Tang it is fantastic.
Download the whole thing for free here.
And lastly, just so you kids know what is up. Check out the Neurotiks. They were my favorite band when I was 15. They were on my record label and once on the way back from a show they jumped me because they thought it would be funny. Years later the bassist very humbly apologized to me for fucking with me so much. I told everyone about it and made fun of him for trying to get his life together. We never talked again after that. Still, they were fucking amazing. You probably might not understand why they are amazing, and I am pretty sure everyone in this band is probably embarrassed of it, but they changed my life. And this track was my favorite song on the record I put out when I was 15. That, my friends, is fucking history.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRxazBjHAUw[/youtube]
