Doomsy, regarding my new apartment home up high.

I tried Trees is free, please leave a key/These meager fleas, he's the breeze/And she's the bee's knees for sheez, but it covered up the whole picture plus it sounded like I was referring to myself as the bee's knees which is not the case (I'm the cat's pajamas).

Deep Earth - “House of Mighty II.” Motorik will perhaps give me energy to move the remaining 92% of my record collection (not seen in photo).

mp3.





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Top 7 reasons life is wonderful, 04/22/10.

1. Dave's Quality Meat thought of the Guru tribute post I was supposed to have thought of--they pulled together all the skate video parts over the years set to Gangstarr songs. Fucking genius. NYC boys are so clever; it's a stereotype of mine that will probably not change. Plus they say "God bless you" when you walk down the street and make you feel like the foxiest woman alive. Photo above by Massan.




2. Mobb Deep's "Whole Lotta Thug," STILL even though it's been approximately 10 days, 6 hours and 29 minutes since it entered my life via NahRight. I can't stop. Way better than whole lotta love and a whole lotta rosie, plus the realness is foundation, so please have a seat everyone else hoping to get a spot on the apt. 15 playlist this week.








3. Jeezy's "Greatest Trapper Alive." Not the song itself, 'cause it's dumb, but the name of the song--a lovely example of simple yet effective pun-ery, like Malice in Wonderland, that album that Snoop did about the dude from The Clipse.

The judges also would have accepted "Trapper John, M.C." and Jeezy's nod to Elvis, "We're caught in a trap; I can’t walk out."






4. Tanlines - "Real Life." I wish somebody would start a band with a friend, base it in Brooklyn, wear v-neck shirts, get coverage in Nylon, and put out experimental pop. And hey, did you know Matador records still exists? (!).

mp3.



5. THAT SWEATER HAS GOT TO BE AN MC ESCHER X COOGI LIM EDISH.





6. The Golden Filter - "Hide Me" (Peter Bjorn & John mix). I support and agree with the concept of synth in most forms.

mp3.




7. The xx - "VCR" (Matthew Dear mix). My intense throbbing love begins around 01:50. This is what the DJ puts on when it's time for me to show 'em what I'm working with at the strip club owned by Dov Charney. I go on at 11:30.

mp3.








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I can't forget the day I shot that bad bitch down.

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Me and the weird old bearded dude who owns that record store in your town are having a music trivia nerd-off. He offers that today's the day Donny Hathaway killed himself in '79. I counter with the fact that on this day in 1968, Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three performed at Folsom for some super-geeked inmates. Guess what? I WIN THIS ROUND. Almost exactly like the Geto Boys, I CAN'T BE STOPPED.

On heavy, heavvvy rotation in my childhood home, At Folsom Prison was my first foray into the terrible romantic beauty of the Up North Trip in lyric form. Here's to being raised on stories set to melody about prison and coke, then growing up, amassing a bikini collection, getting a master's, and being obsessed with stories set to melody about prison and coke (Happy birthday again, Rae!).


Bonus nerdage: Rick James, Timothy Leary, and Eldridge Cleaver? All former inmates at Folsom. And, coincidentally, all probably CRAZY, dirty-talkin, chemical-assisted, hair-pullin partners in bed. (Sorry Mom.)

“Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.”

“Cocaine Blues.” Wait, didn't I already mention Rick James in this post?

mp3.



“Folsom Prison Blues.”

mp3.







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Steve Miller plays his music in the sun and really likes fuzzy produce.

“The Joker” came out on this day in 1973. The song rules but I feel conflicted about its lyrical content.

On one hand, self-identifying as anything remotely fresh is so tired and reveals that your game is weak. So saying I'm a joker is like saying I'm sexy or I'm so intelligent. If it's true, you'll never need to say it. Shutting up about it is the best way to advertise. Who feels it knows it.

On the other hand, postmodernism in general is so tired and I find that irony is increasingly overstaying its welcome, so maybe announcing you are what you are is the ultimate in sincerity and therefore kind of dope - ? OH DEAR, I feel confused inside. Let me review this further and get back to you.



I'm deducting points for its lack of handclaps (here's how it's done), lazy song structure and
overall bad writing, but you know I love to celebrate a goddamn musical staple of ironic white pride. I also love my random thoughts about songs. Oh look, here come some now:

- Some people call Steve the space cowboy, he says. Sure, buddy, but we both know that more people call Kool Keith the space cowboy.

- Peaches are so succulent, so juicy and sweet. How come more dudes don't offer up musical tributes to them? You're a pioneer in this regard, Steve.

- Basslines. I treasure them. I keep them in an airtight glass case and wash my hands before handling them. And the ones from the mid-70s are some of the most valuable in my collection. “The Joker” is built around one that's legendary. One I'll tell my grandkids about.

- 5th Ward tie-in. Even better: underappreciated early album (pre-big hit album) tie-in. Bitches look at me like I'm a faker/Knowing goddamn well I'm a mutherfuckin heartbreaker. Turns out 'Face likes peaches too!



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Kneesock music.

For every genre of music in apt. 302, there is a corresponding sartorial style for the listener. (this only applies to me, though; nobody cares what you wear and if you're in apt. 302 it's because I already like your overall presentation anyway so don't worry about it)


So. Seu Jorge is the red onesie and Augustus Pablo is the black bathing suit (um, any of the 4 currently in rotation), BDP of course is the white bikini, and warm-feelings guitar-rock is cuddly sweaters and t-shirts and kneesocks. It's cold today, so very cold, so the plan is to find warmth in something knitted and woolen, drink tea, and reach for the latest & greatest in white-dudes-I-see-at-Trader-Joe's music - it signifies home and family and all good things, since I was often hugged by the most epic of scruffy-faced guitar-playing white men who always told me I'd knock 'em out the box. (He probably didn't mean in the blogging world, and he didn't say it like Slick Rick, but nonetheless sometimes I think he was sort of right. Thanks, Pop.)

Mom likes this one because my hair looks reddish. Mom does not care for blonde because Mom has better taste than me.

1. Drummer, “Feel Good Together.” I love the Black Keys (duh) and I love Drummer (still). They are players from Ohio but they are not the Ohio Players. Even so, fresh-faced Akron boys, your love is like a rollercoaster, baby baby/I wanna ride. See you over by the hummus!

The Black Key can be identified by the lack of collar on his shirt.

mp3.







2. The Dodos, “Fables.” Their names are Meric Long, Logan Kroeber, Keaton Snyder and they use the vibraphone and West African drumming in an extravaganza of Caucasoid global-culture-understanding wackiness. Points for Logan aside, their names are Meric, Logan, and Keaton. The fuck. Out. Of here. I like your band and I commend you for shielding your eyes against sun damage, but those names! You're a law firm, my dudes. PS, the French onion soup from the frozen section is delicious.



This one seems simple and trite at first, but give it time. Like our relationship, it gets better the deeper you go. (I mean, emotionally speaking. Stop that.)


mp3.






3. Shark?, “Colder Araballa.” Nah, not TJ's. This here is some Brooklyn lo-fi dude rock performed by a bunch of Brooklyn lo-fi dudes who I always see at the liquor store when they're running dangerously low on American Spirits.

mp3.


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I'm not too blind to see.

Sept. 8, 2009 AD:

I'm still ONLY built for Cuban linx, and I'm already on my third Blueprint, my how time flies.
(side note, please everybody stop saying Gray-Z. Everyone knows Grandpa Carter is the best "Jay-Z is old" nickname)

Sept. 9, 1978 AD:

"Beast of Burden" is released and, years later, would go on to provide sugary goodness in my ears and make me think that true love is a dude chasing me down the street and pleading with me to have sex with him. Beatles and Led Zep over the Stones ALL DAY, but I'd just be recalcitrant if I didn't admit they have some great ones. The Glimmer Twins was the name of Mick and Keith as a producing duo; such a dumb name, let's be honest. They were great, though, really great. Especially here.

The Rolling Stones - "Beast of Burden"

mp3.

I die for that opening, the drums coming in, then the bass and keys, even though there are a few too many "pretty girls" in the bridge and I get tired of that falsetto real quick. Mick wants to know if he's hard enough, rough enough, rich enough. Sounds to me like she's not into him, but I don't know - sometimes you can break a girl with sheer persistence, gentlemen.



PS -
"Please baby, please baby, please baby, baby baby please."
The beg-and-plead-for-a-woman's-love is an underappreciated category of popular song. Thus spoke HeightFiveSeven.

James' "Please Please Please" and The Beatles' "Oh! Darling" are part of this canon, but there are simply too many to list and it makes me go a little crazy to try. Please see/listen below for pretty great and random selections culled from my parents' record collection.


The Four Seasons - "Beggin'"

mp3.

Frankie Valli's got that thing where a dude can be in misery but sounds so joyful while he's all wrapped up in it. Bonus extra fat points for handclaps. I'm mostly posting this so you don't think of the Madcon version whenever someone mentions this song. I mean, it's a fine version and all, but original trumps derivative almost every time.



The Temptations - "Ain't Too Proud to Beg"

mp3.

David Ruffin sang lead on "My Girl," and on this one, yet sounds so different. Smokey Robinson, in all his amazingness, knew his voice was something great and was the first to put him on as lead. Then a little thing called coke happened in the '70s and negative events befell David. Ah well. It's 1966 and the Temps still have normal-sized egos every time I play this on the jukebox at Fatburger.



Annnnd, of course, THE BAND,
my childhood in musical form - warm and loving and sweet.
(Thanks, Mom and Dad! Sorry I cuss so much on my web log.)



Marvin Gaye cover. There's a reason why I included "almost" in my little speech above about originals vs. derivatives.

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Once upon a time you dressed so fine.

And there was that time Dylan and Ali were boys and somebody snapped a pic.
And then I randomly found out that Highway 61 Revisited was released this week in 1965.
So, see, it's like the universe was begging me to do a Dylan post.

People heard Highway 61 and got their feelings hurt; everyone wanted Dylan to sound the same as he had before. It was his The Bends or, hell, Paul's Boutique. It was too different, hard-sounding. That right there seems so corny and rude; music fans can be so obnoxious sometimes, holding onto a cardboard cutout of the way the musician is Supposed to Sound Forever. But then I remember how annoying this Nas Escobar person was in '96. And then I'm like, Ah yes. Makes sense. I mean, everyone hated Labcabincalifornia when it first came out too. Even me.

In '65, people say, the metaphors and circus imagery in "Like a Rolling Stone," plus the fact that it's 6 minutes long and has like 34 verses but got radio play, was rather groundbreaking-ish. I am not such a rolling stone; I am content in apt. 302, city of LA, in a 4-mile radius from all the record stores I frequent and an hour from my childhood home. Plus I'm not a rich girl slumming it like the breezy in this song (Edie Sedgwick, some say), so the words don't really speak to me as a person. And some of the lyrics are so cringe-y and trite now. However, there's this one Truth About Life contained therein that's right up there with

Don't get high off your own supply,

All in all it's just another brick in the wall, and

This is a man's world -

“You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you.”

Oh Robert, you are my original Man of Judaic Persuasion Crush! Don't let it go to your head. "Like a Rolling Stone."

mp3.


(Speaking of Best Intros in Music! So jangly/pretty/necessary for life.
Thanks, superhuman producer Tom Wilson.)




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H.I. McDunnough speaks on morals.

“There's right, and there's right,
and never the twain shall meet.”

“They got a name for people like you, Hi. That name is called recidivism.”
Um, hello, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be married to a Coen brother. Either one. In 1987.





Asked to explain what makes a movie work, Howard Hawks reportedly defined the formula as

“three good scenes, no bad scenes.”

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Roman Candle - "Why Modern Radio is A-OK." Black Mountain - "Lucy Brown."

"This one's for North Carolinaaaaa" - Petey Pablo.

John Prine-ish lyrically. I'm in love with this.
And the singer...cadence-wise, he's giving me a "Tangled Up In Blue" kind of thing. Plus they have a member named Logan. Add it all up and what you got is my sincere/heartfelt proclamation to Roman Candle:

You're the Band of the Day in apt. 302!

Roman Candle - "Why Modern Radio is A-OK."

mp3.


It's shocking, right? You look at them in the sun-dappled forest in that pic up there and you just about fall over when you hear they're from North Carolina. Shocking. They're from Chapel Hill, one of those places that annoys me because I don't live there even though I should; I hate Duke and I like jangly guitars and sitting on porches and I read Harper's and I'm well-versed in literary theory, stuff like that. I fully expect that I'll be bumping into this crew at TJ's someday like my buddies in Drummer and Drink Up Buttercup and Local Natives, and I'll be able to finally tell them how they've made my latest "summertime, wearing a sundress, eating a nectarine, and thinking about heartbreak like it's something only other people experience" white-girl song. Jesus, I bet this is fun to sing along with live.


And those lyrics, you guys! You better not ever, ever ask me why I created a
"Song lyrics = life instructions" tag on this here web log.


Now he didn’t know, but while he was in jail,
I’d had my heart broken by a woman to wondrous to tell
and we‘d fallen in love to half the songs that jukebox played.
So when he flattened his dollar on the side of the machine
and I saw “Comes a Time” come on the karaoke screen
I knew there was a couple things that I'd forgot to say:
Don’t play Neil Young,
Don’t play Van Morrison,
Just let some high school emo band start versing and chorusing
Because there’s no way it will break my heart as far as I can see
and that’s why modern radio is A-OK with me.

He said a pop song used to be a powerful thing,
you could turn on the AM and John Lennon would sing
or Frank Sinatra would be talking to all of the girls.
And you could think like a hawk or think like a dove
or think of a winter afternoon when you fell in love
and ten songs on a record sounded like a string of pearls...

romancandlemusic.com

PS - Did somebody say "white girl in a sundress, eating a nectarine" song? Here's the Canadian version. You and I are totally doing this next time at karaoke if "Islands in the Stream" is out of your vocal range.

Black Mountain - "Lucy Brown"

mp3.

myspace.com/blackmountain

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MCA, 08/05/65!

'cause you know Y...A-U-C-H
taking all MC's out in the place!


As far as I know, the only Buddhist who's a braggart about having money, juice, and twin sisters in his bed,
got rhymes that are rough and rhymes that are slick, got more rhymes than Phyllis Diller and got rhymes like Abe Vigoda,
what's runnin through his mind comes through in his walk,
steps inside the motherfucker and he gets his flow on,
can magically make
“and this is me, y'all, I MC, y'all/My name is MCA and I still do what I please”
rhyme somehow (??),


and

dope enough to be the only one sans hat in this pic. BROOKLYNNNNN.

What can I say? Really...
I'm just another lady blogger with an unnatural affection for Judeo-Brooklyn mic-brandishing types who had the good sense to be produced by Rubin and the Dust Brothers. And they, in turn, love overripe fresh skeezed California females/with 3-inch cherry red press-on Lee nails, so uh, we're kinda meant to be, MCA and I.
Adrock is the one with the key to my heart, because I'm kinda corny and predictable, but Yauch's the one with whom I'd discuss escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth...oh, and the Knicks' backcourt, of course. Dude loves his Knicks. In sum, he's like the stable older brother whom my mom would prefer I go out with.
Sorry, Mom.

That raspy voice was always pretty dope, his flow on "A Year and a Day" was always pretty dope, he produced Bad Brains, he was able to make an impression in a troupe with another dude named Adam in it, "Boyz N the Hood" woulda been SO WACK without him, plus he plays bass in all the Boys' instros--
'Cause Yauch's on the upright, the shit just ain't funny
got fat bass lines like Russell Simmons steals money


Exhibit A, an OG "Let's try to get Logan to take her pants off" jammy that is nothing, NOTHING, without Yauch's 4 strings:






PS:

"Professor Booty"


mp3.
But like a pencil to a paper I got more to come
One after another you can all get some



Jimmy Smith - "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Babe."
(Attn, people of Earth: I was meant to be alive, and of fornicating age, in 1974.)


mp3.




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Random Tribute: Rapaport's speech in "Beautiful Girls"

Before we were inundated with x amount of cinematic vehicles for grown-up white men to talk about how hard it is for them to be grown-up white men (hi Judd Apatow, and please see yourself out, Judd Apatow), there was this Beautiful Girls situation that happened during a magical time of wonder and merriment called, say it with me now: THE NINETEEN-NINETIES! These days, of course, I have no interest in seeing dudes on the big screen talking about Life Issues with their boys or painfully analyzing whether the prospective wife is really gonna maintain it as the ride-or-die chick after the wedding--it's kinda boring, I could be doing other things with my time, and this topic is always handled as if ladies don't go through this same experience of wondering whether The One is really The One.
But nobody likes a complain-y lady blogger (myself included) so lemme get back to the sweetness and light and nerdiness that you guys all seek from HeightFiveSeven Enterprises.

OhandbythewaydidImention that the movie is pretty great? (I promise I'm not just saying that 'cause of the special place I have in my '80s-hiphop-nerd heart for Yo! MTV Raps). All the boys in the crew are so goddamn sweet (Max Perlich can do no wrong), they don't care about Louis V luggage or diamond baguettes, they appreciate a blonde-highlight-haired skinny girl who likes sports, plus I bet you they could fix my car or at least tell me why it's making that rattling sound.

PS, as a young lady with a smart mouth and a dude's name, I must give an extra loud shout to Johnny up the street from my parents' house who immediately started calling me "Marty" after the movie came out in '96. I didn't appreciate this until years later.
(Sorry, Johnny! Thank you, Johnny!)



And now, I present to you Mike Rap's best work since working at PopCopy, naming his son after Maseo in De La, and almost getting a hit put out on him by the Mau Maus.

“A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high, full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, in the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are - bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels.

A beautiful girl is all-powerful, and that is as good as love.
That's as good as love.”

Scott Rosenberg wrote the lines; he also worked some screenwriting magic for High Fidelity, which you can totally see, right? (white men, wounded psyches...stop me if you've heard this before)


Neil Diamond - "Sweet Caroline"



mp3.



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Geddy Lee, 07/29/53.

And what you say about his company is what you say about society.

I know we're always arguing about which is the superiorest of the superior kick-ass Canadian rock troupes: Steppenwolf, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, or Rush? I don't have time to get into it again with you right now, but in the category of "vocalists," we can all agree that Geddy is the winner. Plus he plays bass at the very same time he's singing! Catch the mist, catch the myth/Catch the mystery, catch the drift, sonnn!

The Internets have revealed to me another piece of information about him that will serve me well when I got on Rock Jeopardy!: he's a huge baseball fan and donated 200 verrry valuable autographed baseballs to the Negro Leagues Museum in '08 (they call him a "Canadian punk rocker" in the article; El Oh El, super-clueless MLB.com!). Aww, I love a big-hearted Canadian.

So next time you raise your Tecate at the bar when "Tom Sawyer" comes on and it makes you feel all triumphant when you hear that synth come in, you can start sharing with your boys this bit about Geddy Lee and the Negro Leagues and they will no doubt think you're obnoxious but if there's a skinny music girl-nerd within earshot, she'll be super impressed.

Enjoy the greatest and most awful lyrical masterpiece disaster* of 1981 (I mean, Jesus, do you ever listen to the words? Bonkers), and the best song based on a Mark Twain novel EV-ERRRR, below. And where's my Tecate??




*The world is, the world is,
Love and life are deep,
Maybe as his eyes are wide.

Today's Tom Sawyer,
He gets high on you,
And the space he invades
He gets by on you.

WHATTHEHALE.



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The rebel/I make more noise than heavy metal.

Glenn Danzig might be a pretentious, dramatic, muscular midget, but
today's his birthday and he's done some great things in the history of White People Music so I'll thank you to show a little respect.


a) This fucking melodic beast of a song makes me want to act all '80s white trashy, get implants and pose like a mudflap girl and get knocked up by my boyfriend on his lunch break from his shift at Pep Boys.

b) You love some NASCAR guitar riffs and a quiet build-up leading into a chorus that makes you want to raise your Tecate in triumph. Don't front.

They give us those nice bright colors/they give us the greeeeens of summers

Bye-bye, Kodachrome.
I made the sadface in apt. 302 this morning.

You thought I wouldn't post this, just cuz I have 3 vinyl copies of Critical Beatdown and a Ghostface doll and I'm constantly supplying you with updates on Monch's activities? How dare you. I got my Wild Pitch Records game tight AND my Bookends/prolific singer-songwriter game tight, and don't ever let anybody tell you different.
This played a key part in the childhood soundtrack of an innocent and pre-hips Logan, raised by, yup, those 2 heathens, and this song is the JAM that gives me tons and tons of Caucasoid enjoyment. OH PAUL.

Ginsberg tells a pouty 15-year-old Logan to knock it off, get a grip, and stop listening to Portishead because Ben P. didn't ask her to the dance

“It isn't enough for your heart to break
because everybody's heart is broken now.”





PS: Dylan & Ginsberg at Kerouac's grave!;
STOP IT in the name of photographic epicness.

This fallen angel could stitch a wing with a shoestring.

Planet Rap Caucasia, it's an epic day in the history of our people. Everyone's favorite comely depressed mic wielder (who I'm pretty sure I could cheer up with my warm sweet love but then I'd lose interest in him because he'd be cheerful) celebrates another completion of the earth's revolution around the sun.

Happy birthday, Ian Bavitz.

OH MOZ. Ask me, I won't say no, howwww could IIIIIIII

Happy 50th, you joyless, grouchy, beautiful wanker.


I'm taking you out for cheeseburgers after work today to thank you for providing the soundtrack for my life, oh and also for the lives of 17,000 fixed-gear and PBR fiends in metropolitan areas throughout the United States,
because
if it's not love, then it's
the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb that will bring us together.
(PS - I keep mine hidden, too.)


I know you didn't really mean it when you said this about the rap music:

“I really do think it's a great musical stench. I find it very offensive, artless and styleless. To me it's very reminiscent of thuggery, pop thuggery. I don't want to hear it at all."
(pop thuggery is our new catch phrase, you guys)

And I know you really meant it when you said this about how you and I have experienced life in much the same way thus far:

“I lost myself to music at a very early age, and I remained there.”



If this does not make you smile and be happy for things like summertime and music and life, then I'm afraid I can never, ever allow you to see me naked.


Plus, you captured my little American girl heart when you said this:
“I am capable of looking on the bright side - I just don’t do it very often.”

And this:
“Nothing is important, so people, realising that, should get on with their lives, go mad, take their clothes off, jump in the canal, jump into one of those supermarket trolleys, race around the supermarket and steal Mars bars and kiss kittens.”

I fancy you, Steven Patrick.

Suckers - "Easy Chairs" + The Decemberists - "The Rake's Song": Where are my keys?

We all know that nothing, nothing, will never ever ever EVERRR replace "And if a double-decker busssss...crrrrraaaashes into usssss/To die by your siiiiide/is such a heavenly way to diiiiiie" as the ultimate bro chorus when you're with your bros, bro-ing down at the Short Stop (circa '07; too many Ash Roth types there now).

However, "Riiiight onnnn/whooooaaaaoooohh"*
and
"all right/all right/allll riiiiiight"**
are pretty easy to remember and sing along with after 8 Tecates. (1 and a half Tecates in my case). Oh, and yeah I am a girl but I can take part in a bro chorus, duh.

Listen to these songs, in entirety, preferably in headphones cuz you know that's how I do things. They're like auditory whiskey at the bar--I can see you now, holding your plastic cup, wondering where your keys are (in your pocket, sweetheart), and being all like "You think you're better than me?!" to that dude who glanced at you on his way to the bathroom. Your belligerence is charming, tiger. Enjoy.


*





Additionally, The Decemberists are fucking annoying and I love them
(but pretty much only this song at this very moment in time).
They have these super trite lyrics in what's supposed to be a concept album but it's all just so tired and lame.
I'm sorry, but does this picture not fill you with rage?

The suits, the umbrella with hang-y stuff, and most of all that bowler hat. WHAT THE HALE is your problem, PORTLAND. Cease & desist immediately.
In conclusion, this song and its melodies make life worth living. Enjoy.

**



Postscript--Los Esmiths
Once upon a time (Oct. '08) this here web log writer was taken to a little Mexican dive bar up the street from The Echo after Wonderfull. The place was full of dudes with mustaches and cowboy hats and boots, with a smattering of wacky intoxicated kids like us thrown in. THIS CAME ON THE JUKEBOX you guys, and I freaked the fuck out slightly, and THEN, when the chorus hit, we all sang along even though we were singing in 2 different languages, and I swear to god it was heaven--beer, free tacos, and me in a tight white tank top, and all of us crazy humans singing our hearts out in the middle of the night in a sea of drunken Smiths-ness. Precious, beautiful Los Angeles, you're crazy and I love you.

"Don't go to work; listen to Slayer"

"Group Wants to Make National Day of Slayer an Official U.S. Holiday"

"Brett Stevens, a member of the International Day of Slayer Task Forces, said 'Heavy metal music is the central belief of a culture that exists among us, and Slayer is the perfect spokesperson. We are a pluralistic nation composed of many cultures, some of which you're born into and some you choose. For many of us, metal becomes the only culture that makes sense to us, and it's only fair we get representation.'

Included in the package (with the petition) sent to Barack Obama was a copy of Reign in Blood. According to the organization, this is probably the first time that a Slayer album has made it into the White House. (Um, hello--Rutherford B. Hayes, anyone?)

The proclamation (LOL, I'm dying):

WHEREAS, Hessians are a legitimate elective culture that should be recognized with their own national day of celebration and

WHEREAS, Slayer is freaking awesome and one of the most influential metal bands in history and

WHEREAS, The theme of the National Day of Slayer is "Don't go to work, listen to Slayer," which reflects the imminent importance of Slayer in the lives of Hessians across America and

NOW, THEREFORE I, Barack Obama, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, hereby proclaim the day of June 6, 2009, as National Day of Slayer, saluting the valuable artistic contributions of the band Slayer and the legitimacy of the hessian culture that supports them. And I call upon all Americans to listen to Slayer on this day and every day hereafter."

- Link

The Prez liked "Angel of Death" and "Altar of Sacrifice" but felt that the rest of the album was sub-par, with lyrics that could have used more variety in subject matter and some better chord progression.
He did like Rubin's production, however.

Axl. Again.

1987:

“I sing in five or six different voices, so not one song is like another, even if they’re all hard rock. In the last year, I’ve spent $1,300 on music, everything from Slayer to Wham!, to listen to production, vocals, melodies, this and that. I’m from Indiana, where Lynyrd Skynyrd are considered God to the point that you ended up saying, ‘I hate this fucking band!’ Yet for 'Sweet Child' I went out and got some old Skynyrd tapes to make sure that we had got that heartfelt feeling.”

Music nerdery will, in fact, lead to my demise.
If there's anything I like more than geeking out over music/music history/musicians, it's geeking out over a musician geeking out. Dear Axl, I too spent $1300 on music last year to listen to production, vocals, and melodies. Except I'm not making a record; I'm just a melody enthusiast.

Sigh.