Just when you think it couldn't be as bad as you imagined it could be, then the proof comes out and it's even worse than you imagined. A Black Flag cover band is the main draw for Punk Rock Posing this year, and people are losing their minds over this? Really? I guess those people didn't see the exact same line up of karaoke stars stumble and plod their way through a few songs at the Goldenvoice 30th Anniversary show a few years ago. Here's some video footage in case you didn't see it. Watch how all the bright flashing lights make up for the fact that there's NOTHING going on on the stage, in the audience, nowhere.
 Yeah, so let's assume that the band learns every song that Keith actually sang on while in Black Flag (side 1 of the Everything Went Black album and the Nervous Breakdown single), and, like he does in every band he's in, Keith sings a few classic early Punk Rock songs from the L.A. era (something from the Weirdos or the Dils), and he tells his stories about how much he loves Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club, well, let's see, that's about a half hours worth of stage time. Perfect to play a set for the Punk Rock sheeple to line up and pay to be fleeced. And no matter how hard you believe in it, I hate to break it to you, but you're not seeing Black Flag. Sucks to be you, I know. And Bad Religion? What a fucking joke. They haven't been relevant since Against The Grain. Same with The Bouncing Souls. Their last records have sucked so badly it's almost embarrassing to admit to ever liking them at one time. Sub/Hum/Ans? The Damned? OK, good choices, but they might cancel out like other bands from across the pond have done every year in the past. And the rest of the announced bands? Extremely lame. The Lower Class Brats are playing here next week @ LVCS, and I have no idea why they're playing that venue. Are they that big of a draw? Seriously? And D.R.I. just played here a few months ago - same with the $wingin' Utter$ - and I'm sorry to say, but neither one of those shows were very well attended. I have no idea why that is. I guess the secret of putting on an event like this is getting together a bunch of bands who don't draw well on their own and putting them on display in a cattle pen for everyone to stand and stare at. Whatever. Some people like seeing bands up close and intimate, and other people like seeing bands in a Cockstar environment only when it's the 'cool' thing to do. Enjoy your Punk Rock Posing sheeple. I'm planning on staying as far away as possible from that thing. :-)
If you wanna get a real dose of what Punk Rock is supposed to be about, in both Music and Attitude, then come out tonight to the Artifice and check out Unfair Fight and The Fat Dukes Of Fuck. Yeah, I know the gripes about Artifice, and I'm not gonna rebut a single one of them, but when you got a lot of Friends there, hanging out, having fun, then you can really make it into a good time, which is exactly what's going to go down tonight. See ya there!
So I'm talking to a budding prostitute friend of mine the other night, right? She's asking me when I was going to update the website, and I told her that I wanted to, but I really didn't have anything to say. I mean, what was I going to write about? Bashing on the idiotic bands that participated in that Vegas Rocks awards ceremony was too easy, and what I thought to be a huge waste of time. Pay to Play awards show? Weak as fuck. Grovelling for acceptance / recognition from a magazine that doesn't give 2 shits about your band or your music scene? Fuck off! All you bands that attended and were involved with that shit should be ashamed of yourselves. Go play another Anti-Bar Fest in the desert and then play a bar afterwords for your real fans, you bunch of hypocrites you, but I digress. Back to the front line. I had nothing to chat up really, but after waking up this evening and checking out my Facebook page, I suddenly was inspired by what I saw posted on there. With a mouth full of vitriol I now proceed.
The Las Vegas Weekly can suck it. Seriously. I have never been a fan of their glossy piece of shit rag, with it's focus more on the 'beautiful people' who queue up to the Clubs like the sheep that they are to dance the night away while hearing a set of mediocrity being put together by some jack off scenester douche bag with his iPod, and kissing the ass of the advertisers who pay waaaayyy too much money to be included in this weeks crap filled issue, and throw into that mix the fact that they give little to no coverage to any scene or gig that's not happening @ the Beauty Bar or the Palms, well it all just adds up to me giving up on that fluff filled magazine years and years and years ago. 1997 I believe it was. :-)
I can't speak of their coverage of anything else with any air of authority, but I can say this with all the conviction I can muster - their Local music scene coverage is a joke. A sad, pathetic, unfunny joke. The stuff they print is usually regurgitated press releases, sometimes verbatim (I know - I get the same press releases they do), and their, ahem, 'Reviews' of stuff that's happening around town is just as see through and watery as a Coors light piss at 4 in the morning. The initiator of all this piss & vinegar comes after reading this 'Review' of the Las Vegas Shake Down written by one Laura Davis, who, I can only assume after reading her write up on the event, is some retarded scenester chick sniffling and snorting with others of her ilk in the bathroom stalls of the Beauty Bar or the Griffin. Click here to read it. Now the article title is a bit misleading, isn't it? She was there for a few hours of 1 day, not at all 3 days of the event. She shows up 5 hours late for the last day of the festival, talks about the first band she sees (Spindrift - who?) by mentioning nothing about the bands performance, she apparently watches the cock rock singer of the next band (Morlocks - again, who?) talk to the crowd before their set and then again, mentions nothing about the bands performance that night, and then goes over to the Beauty Bar where she mentions that it looks like a Double Down crowd in attendance (a very sad thing to say, in my humble opinion) and she then mentions that the Lower Class Brats are 'tearing the place a new one'. Oh 'em GEE!! That last statement sent me over the freaking edge! The Lower Class Brats, on their best of days, couldn't rip any place a new one. Never. And they aren't even fit to carry the sweaty, shit and piss stained tighty whitey Fruit of the Loom underwear that the Rip Offs may or may not wear. The Rip Offs, a real punk band, not a bunch of douche bags mining that whole 'A Clockwork Orange' thing that most of us grew out of when we got our first pubic hairs. Man, there's nothing I hate more than ignorant, lazy journalism. It just make me go 'Grrrrrrrrrrrr'. Laura Davis, Congratulations! You've inspired me to be a much better coughcoughjournalistcoughcough than I already am, and you've allowed me to vent a bit about your shitty writing and the shitty paper you work for. Thank you very much for that. Stay the fuck away from things in which you know nothing about, like anything Punk Rock related. Now both of you go off somewhere in the desert past Sam Boyd Stadium and die please. Thank you.
In the 'Who Cares?' Dept: Fletcher from Pennywise gets tasered and arrested after getting into a fight with the band Alesana (who?) on the Denver stop of the Warped Tour. Click here to read all about it. As someone who has personally gotten into a brawl with Senor Fletcher, all I can say is that the Cops are lucky it only took 5 tasers to take him down. That dude hits hard as fuck. :-)
Anyways, loads of new stuff added, Gig Calendar page updated, the Black Fag / Left Unattended / 1/2 Ast / Dick Falcon Show Review is up and running (click here to read it), the photos of the Zodiac Killers and the Humpers are posted, and everything is chugging along nicely. I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep the website with this look but for now, I'm digging it! hahaha
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