Alice in Chains - Rooster (Dylan's Dumb iPod #4)

Dude...let's go back in time for a bit. To a time that was more pimply faced. A time where confusing erections came and went with all the frivolity and seeming regularity of blossoms on the Apricot tree. A time where it was socially acceptable...nay, encouraged to bleach only the top part of one's hair. When boys and girls would date each other only between the hours of 8:30 AM and 3:30 PM. To a time when everyone reeked of maxx-hold gel, Michael Jordan cologne and fruit roll-ups and finding a ride to the movie theater was one's only weekend objective. Middle school bro.

Now, truth be told, Alice in Chains pre-dated my middle school career. By the time I started 6th grade (1998), they were already on their big hiatus, Jerry Cantrell was set to release a solo album, and the band was still resting on the laurels of their Unplugged performance ("Friends don't let friend's get haircuts.") It doesn't take away from the fact that in middle school, I was obsessed with this band. While the nation had turned away from "alternative music" to focus on the bastardized staccato of the rancid Nu-metal beast that was emerging, me and my friends got heavily into the "grunge" bands we'd just been introduced to by older cousins in elementary school.

To date, hearing "Rooster" in the wee hours of the morning during the summer between my 5th and 6th grade year on an FM radio call-in show...well it stuck with me. It's probably because it was late, and I was younger and (ostensibly) stupider, but somehow it seemed really heavy. "Rooster" is a heavy song. Not heavy like Crowbar or Madball...but it had an emotional depth I couldn't really fathom as a kid. Those cooing gospel sighs at the beginning, Layne Staley's crackerman drawl and the slowest example of Jimi Hendrix style whammying I'd ever heard. Unreal. I knew it was about war. It had to be. It's a sad song, and it was a sadness that I identified with...for reasons unknown.

I misinterpreted a bunch of the lyrics. I still can't tell if he's saying "walking tall the chicken man" or "walking tall machine gun man." The line about "got my pills 'gainst mosquito death/my buddy's breathin' his dying breath." You wanna give a 12 year old the shakes? Holy damn.
There's conflicting opinion as to why the song's titled "Rooster." I guess something about the flare of a gun looks like Rooster feathers or the Eagle insignia that Vietnam soldiers wore on their arm. Something like that. The video actually had real soldiers come and re-enact and it's been praised for it's realism. The song was referenced in a Beavis and Butthead episode too. They talk about "snuffing a rooster" with a war veteran.

All I know is that I waited by the radio, blank cassette in hand and my finger poised above the "Record" button to snag it the next time it came on. It's a song I listened to incessantly (still do) because it's got a slow crawl and a leaden punch that I haven't seen replicated in many other places.

As I got older, my hardcore friends got all high and mighty about Alice in Chains, saying they were too slow, or citing their bonehead demographic. They weren't far off the mark, but I stayed loyal...though I haven't really been following their new stuff (new singer? It's alright, but they should just change the name of the band).

Maybe people listen to this song and get reminded of horrifying war time experiences they've endured. Korea. Vietnam. Desert Storm. I don't get any of that. It just makes me think about rainy school bus rides in the rain, bad Adidas and all the other horrors of middle school...and somehow it still makes sense to me.



The song is from the Alice in Chains album Dirt, 1993, Sony Records, bluh bluh bluh

Beady Eye - Millionaire (Dylan's Dumb iPod #3)

Maybe people were genuinely excited about Beady Eye. I guess I kind of was…but as solid as Different Gear, Still Speeding may have been (nods to Andy Bell on that one) much of the time it sounded kind of stunted and played out like mid-late (bad) period Oasis. Still, it’s not always fair to compare the two bands, what with Noel Gallagher (Oasis’s primary songwriter) up-and-leaving his brother Liam to try and cobble it together (Let’s not forget that Liam’s contributions to Oasis pretty much begin and end with those soaring vocals. His songwriting credits are scant) with the remaining lineup…a lineup that’s seen more upheaval than the Louisiana coastline.

Still, the record wasn’t bad at all (I reviewed it in a mag I write for) and defied many skeptical expectations. Liam sounds great imitating all his favorite British singers (John Lennon and Paul Weller mostly) and the band sounds loose and fluid, (more than ever) incorporating little strains of sixties psyche and pop into their sound.

“Millionaire” is an Andy Bell/Liam Gallagher/Gem Archer composition and was released as the second single for the album. It’s supposed to be about driving around Spain and looking at light shining through a stained glass window, admiring Salvador Dail paintings or something else completely underwhelming like that.

It’s got a weird “swamp” feel to it (maybe it’s that steel guitar) and the melodies are sticky sweet (and the lyrics are kind of a mouthful). I detect a heavy La's influence here too. Beady Eye certainly isn’t one of the most memorable bands, but I never regret playing their records and you can’t go wrong playing them for others either.

Video for “Millionaire”

This stuff is all taken from the Beady Eye album Different Gear, Still Speeding 2011 Beady Eye/Danger Bird Records, bluh bluh bluh.

Ride - In a Different Place (Dylan's Dumb iPod #2)

Good golly, if Ride isn’t one of the most fantastic bands in existence. Heavenly though it may be, a good lot of shoegaze (especially anything retro) is fairly indistinguishable…but Ride always managed to stay above water. Most nerds herald Nowhere as their zenith record and probably one of the genre defining masterpieces. Cool people love that wall o’ sound shimmer and they can appreciate that awesome cover art.

I’m sure there’s a gamut of opinions as to what this song’s about. Drugs (“blowing bubbles, lying down” sounds kinda gross to me) tuning out (“you and I were in a different time.”) and being impervious to weather (“Even if the rain falls down, and all the sky turns cold/ I will still be fine.”) Maybe it’s about the euphoric charge a youngster feels when foolishly falling in love or huffing keyboard duster (or that weird game we used to play where we’d pass someone out by cutting off airflow to their head. To get real extreme, when their eyes had rolled back and they’d lost a little consciousness, we’d run out the door and turn the lights off so the poor asphyxiate would wake up 12 seconds later completely disoriented…really dangerous. Don’t do it).
I’m a sucker for those drums because they sound like the kind of drums that God would play if he was mixing a Kyuss record and then playing it underwater. Swirling, kaleidoscopic guitars that chime and hiss and everything is just a beat or slower than you’re used to…dreamlike…or as if you’re walking as fast as you can through a swimming pool.

A dude in my American lit class (Junior year o’ college) used to wear a Ride Nowhere shirt. I was (am) painfully lonely so I tried to make conversation with him. It came to light that he was from San Diego (nothing wrong with that) and was into longboards and Fleet Foxes (plenty wrong with that). Forever alone.

What if stoner kids in middle school wore Ride shirts and not Sublime ones?

(Song by Ride from Nowhere. 1990 Sire Records).

They Live - Blurred (Dylan's Dumb iPod #1)

I've been kicking around this stupid idea for a while now....where I just press "shuffle" on my iPod, see what comes up, and then write about it. I can never think of anything to write, so I figure this is a way to get me writing stuff regularly. 

They Live is a band that my friend Jeff Likes. He likes fast hardcore. Really fast hardcore. Ultimately, I don't think They Live gets talked about enough. Most fast bands (and I think most people would call They Live a powerviolence band) sound almost exactly the same...but They Live had a unique sound and carved their own lane. Plus, Blurred is an essential 8 minutes of blazing-fast hardcore. Somehow, these files that I got weren't named, only the side and track number. Oh well. This is a pretty cool song. Not much to talk about. Just really fast.

Jeff also has some tracks of them covering Project X and Turning Point. If my friend Keith were writing this, he'd make sure to talk about how "They Live" is actually the name of a horror movie...but I'm not a horror movie buff at all. That stuff just terrifies me.

Also, I heard a story about how the singer from this band lit his face on fire at a show in Canada? I think I can substantiate it with an old issue of Town of Hardcore, but I'm not sure.

Since I honestly can't find a single picture of Blurred online (one that isn't the size of a postage stamp) I'm just going to post this one instead.

As far as I know, you can still get Blurred pretty easily, so poke around. If you're a Euro, they have them in the Feral Ward Store.

TBH Fanzine - A Story about Fake Jordans

I’ve got a lot of down time between putting out zines. It takes me a long time because I’ve got lots of other things to do. Still, I’d really like to update this thing with more regularity so, I’ve decided to do just that but still keep things fanzine related.

Over the years I’ve developed a hefty collection of hardcore fanzines that serve as an endless wealth of quotable entertainment. Many of these fanzines aren’t in print any more, and it’s a damn shame...but we're balls deep in the internet age and there's no getting around it. No, I’m not going to scan my old zines and put them online...that’s time intensive and I don’t feel like doing it. What I’d rather do instead is take some of the little “zine nuggets” that I’ve found over the years of poring through these things (most of the time while pooping) and expand on them a little bit. Add some personal commentary. That kind of self-indulgent internet-generation nonsense. So here goes. Fanzine nugget #1.

This one comes from a fanzine out of Chicago called TBH. I never found out officially, but I’m almost certain that “TBH” stands for “The Big Hurt” which rules because a) it’s an allusion to Chicago White Sox powerhouse Frank Thomas and b) Becky Miller (of Double Rabies, I Question Not Me and Lifers fanzine fame) and I have plans to actually make a band with this name. I just need to move to New York City first. Becky also has her own baseball blog that you can check out here. It's witty, hilarious and feverishly obsessive just like her zines.

TBH inspired Drug Dogs in a lot of ways. For one, it had plenty of illustrations done by the editor…something I’ve always been a fan of and something I take with me in my own zine making pursuits (that’s also why they take a little while to put out). Secondly, the back of TBH #3 sports giant, stenciled hardcore lyrics, (in this case Warzone ones) and that’s something I’ve sort of “borrowed” as well, only gone beyond the realm of hardcore. (Like using Bob Dylan and Monster Magnet lyrics)

This particular nugget comes from an Expired Youth interview conducted in TBH #3. They were an awesome straight edge band from Chicago that came the closest to “Screaming…” era Uniform Choice as any other band I’d seen. I saw ‘em a few times. Once in Louisville and they covered Judge’s “Like You” and once at a crappy community center in E-town. Here’s a video of it. If you’re hip to my dudes you’ll notice a huskier Keith Lucius, and a substantially skinnier me (sporting a dorky choker necklace) moshing. I think it's from 2006.

2000's suburban KY metalcore for ya

In fact, at one point, a dude who I grew up with who’d played in a metalcore bands (with a pink guitar...pictured above), somehow got recruited to play a few shows with them because they were in dire straits. I can’t remember all of the details, but it was certainly a bizarre turn of events.

Anyway, this interview took place in TBH #3 which came out in either 2006 or 2007.

From The Big Hurt Fanzine #3

I heard some crazy shit went down across the street. What happened?

I was chilling out front having a Power Slurpee one day and a Mexican dude went into the Turkish Food & Liquor store across the street. They have card games in there every Saturday. This guy was playing with them and lost. He ran out, and the guys caught him and shook him down right in front of the place. After they ripped the money out of his pockets, the Mexican dude flipped out and swung off the air conditioning in the door, ripping it off. Then the dude threw it through the door. Four guys came out of the building and took him around back. It was pretty righteous.

Sketchiest place you’ve ever bought Jordans from?

Easily Pulaski and Madison. That was the worst. It wasn’t the worst it was just…I really felt out of place just because I went there with four black dudes from work. I went and parked my car in front of a swap meet in this parking lot and right away I got circled by dudes. The guys I was with had to tell these dudes I was with them, ‘cuz they thought I was a cop. Honestly, they thought I was a cop. We went through this other swap meet, where you were just surrounded by shit. Bootleg everything. Polar Bear Jackets with camel lining, shit like that. We go down these stairs and there’s more shops down there, but then there’s this room with nothing in it but a white wall and a white door. I thought I was gonna get killed or something. We go there and its this dude I work with, Marion’s cousin. He gets all these Jordans that fall off the back of a truck. They let people in two at a time. I’m standing there, waiting and they ask me what I’m there for. I tell them I just want to check out the shoes. I’m standing there waiting, and then I get to go in. It’s like Jordan wonderland. You’ve got the black and midnight blue Jordan 1’s, mocha Jordan 3’s, Playoff 5’s, Playoff 4’s, Olympic 6’s which are the most rare Jordans. I’m pretty positive that all of them were bootleg shoes, but who’s gonna grab your foot and scope out your shoe to see if they are bootleg? If I’m rocking rare Olympic Jordan 6’s, who is going to be the one to tell me they’re fake?

What happened the other day?

That was just a crazy day. I saw two sets of twins. Isn’t there some logic behind that, like isn’t that bad luck or something? I found a third Jordan store at 71^st and Cottage Grove. I ate at Toots and they have Macaroni and Cheese Nuggets. I mean when you’re in college and all you eat is macaroni and cheese and now they have nuggets…who thinks of that shit? A genius. Probably the worst thing but best thing for you. Then I saw one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen living in Chicago. My job entails me driving around the city looking for worksites to buy from, but really I just drive around cool parts of the city I haven’t been to before. While down in one of my favorite, most exquisite parts of the city, which is 71^st and Cottage Grove, lanes were merging and this car ran into an innocent car. The dude got out of his car, his car was smoking. This Wendell Smith wannabe started crying. He laid down in the middle of the street pretending his neck was broke when he was just yelling at the car next to him. Before he got out of the car, he said “I’m the type of **** that will tear your world apart!” I was speechless. Who says that? That’s like something straight out of an Onyx record.

CHI TOWN RUMBLE

You can find Expired Youth on Myspace, Last FM or if you just wanna get down to the nitty gritty D/L a record or two.

I don’t know if this zine is still being made, but it’s a quality one and the email address used inside is: jeffklepper@gmail.com