Not Even Almost Famous

Diamond Rexx "Kick In Your Face"

Whenever I go shopping for records and I across anything of the hair metal variety, I usually pick it up. Its almost always awful; sometimes it's surpirsingly non-awful. Then there is the laughably awful. Diamond Rexx's Land Of The Damned fits that bill.

I bought this record solely for the fact that it had a track titled "Kick In Your Face". So I shouldn't have been surprised to find that this was the best song on the album. Hailing from Chicago (I wonder if they were friends with Chip Z'Nuff), Diamond Rexx consisted of the following members: Nasti Habits, who fulfills the lead vocal duties with the enthusiasm that can only be found within a dude who doesn't realize he really can't sing at all. Drummer Johnny Cottone, whose real name was probably Johnny Cottolokinsky. Guitar player S. St. Lust, whose name is so valuable to the hair metal canon that I can't even make a joke about it. Rounding out the quartet was Andre on "electric bass". Just Andre. He was too busy pulling down tail to have a last name.



After the first chorus of "Kick You In The Face", before the second verse, we can hear Nasti Habits' sinister laugh. Why did metal bands always insist on doing this? Did they imagine that their rock was so balls hard that women were tearing off their clothes as they listened to and hesher dudes heads were literally exploding, and since they as the bringer of rock to yr face were so very evil that their first reaction to this was to laugh maniacally? Personally if I wrote a song that had that effect the first thing I would do would be to nail those chicks then maybe call an ambulance for the dude. Not just laugh like a bad actor playing the villian in a small town theatre production.



"Kick You In The Face" is seriously one of the most ridiculous metal songs I've ever heard, I I've heard a LOT (this one, for instance). I applaud Diamond Rexx's ingenuity, but they must have been coked to the gills when they cut this track. Personally I would have called it "Kick In Your FUCKING Face", but that's just one man's opinion. Nearly every song on this debut album mentions lyricist Nasti Habits' desires for fame ad fortune. The chorus of "Life And Death" declares "Life and death and liberty/take me to me limousine". What the fuck does liberty have to do with you doing rails off some skank's tush in yr limo hot tub and puking off the side of the Dan Ryan expressway, Nasti? There's even a song called "Wish I Was Rich". Well, Diamond Rexx never really made it big, but they're still around. In fact they're still making records, although the only survivor from the original lineup is Nasti Habits. Just call him the Robert Pollard of sleazy Aqua Net metal.

Fading Capstan Series

The Capstan Shafts "My Family Was Welsh I'm Just Tired"

The very, VERY Guided By Voices sound of The Capstan Shafts can be attributed to one man, Vermont's Dean Wells. I probably would never had found this guy if I hadn't been searching for another band to fill the void that GBV left but I have to say Dean pulls it off nicely. His songs sound like the Tobin Sprout songs from Alien Lanes and Bee Thousand. I hate to take everything away from The Capstan Shafts by constantly comparing them to someone else, but, ah......

Ah fuck it dude let's go bowling.

Live! Live! Live!

"Out Of The Blue"

"Buzzcops"

"Maybe: Definitely"

"Ashtray! Ashtray!"

"I Wanna"

"Blue Skies"

You may remember me talking about Die!Die!Die! was performing a weekly residency here in Los Angeles at the Echo. Well, to my squealing, schoolgirl like delight they have released one of their shows as a live album entitled Spaceland & Part Time Punks Present: Die!Die!Die! at the Echo. This is just what the world needs. Despite their recordings being some of the greatest stuff ever put down to tape, the real thrill of Die!Die!Die! lies in their live performances. This searing set of face melting rock with give you an inkling of why I rave about these guys so much. Of course you haven't really experienced it until you've seen lead singer scale a twenty foot wall, fall over it and continue screaming from the other side of it.

Ride The Snake

Midnite Snake "Bigfoot '69"

Midnite Snake is officially my favorite new band. I don't know how long they've been around but its new to me. The Snake (as I have decided to start calling them, right now) contains member of another favorite band of mine, Modey Lemon. They play long instrumental stoner jams with great intensity. Enough intensity for ten cities, in fact. Their latest offering Shaving The Angel is available from Birdman Records and their publishing company is called "Unchokable Toke". Right on. I haven't held a record that smelled this much like sensamilla since my older brother's copy of Yes' Relayer.

When Strikes The Skeletoid

Bobot Adrenaline "Damn The Machine" (Damn Skippy Mix)

Bobot Adrenaline "Antiwar Song"

Bobot Adrenaline "State Of Affairs"

I happened to catch a performance by Bobot Adrenaline on the local college radio station one night. It was nerve racking because the station kept cutting in and out to some new church of christ broadcast and I desparately wanted to hear the end of their set. Their brand of poppy punk rock (albeit under a horribly stupid moniker; they sound like they're poised to play host to the next extreme snowboarding championships) was stripped down to bare bones rock and it sounded so fucking good. Then I looked them up when I got home and found their recordings to be overproduced (sigh) and their lyrics to be overtly political (double sigh).

So these tracks don't really do the band justice but I had to put them up here. They're apparently opening for Social Distortion (triple sigh) at the House Of Blues (quadruple sigh) here in Los Angeles, and although I'd really like to experience that live feeling again, I just don't think I could subject myself to standing in a House Of Blues (actually house of whites) with a bunch of Social Distortion fans.

Wah Goo Bunny

White Rabbits "The Plot"

White Rabbits have the perfect hipster success story. They come to New York via the midwest and after only a little over year they have a hip producer, a highly blogged record and a buzz big enough to land them on last summer's Lollapalooza in Chicago. Tight, ironic t shirt wearing scensters must be gripping their bushy beards with rage and throwing their expensive sunglasses to the floor of their overpriced dive bar.

But this doesn't necessarily make them a bad band. Yes, I believe musicians should probably pay their dues before tasting success, otherwise it seems like everything is just being handed to them. But in this day and age that doesn't happen anymore. You have bands like Panic In The Disco getting signed when they're sixteen years old and just learning to play just for the way they look. So paying yr dues doesn't mean shit anymore. Just enjoy White Rabbits hooky dance beats, they'll be gone soon anyway.

Don't Fear The Reaper

Don't hear the leaper, either. Yr probably best off just not touching anything.