People can say some pretty stupid things online. Maybe it’s the anonymity, maybe it’s just a spur-of-the-moment thought immortalized forever on a message board. Some of them are understandable, given circumstances. OK, your brain farted and spat out that retarded statement, and now you’re feeling better. Alright.

But sometimes, the things people say can cause great need for release of frustration. Some of them can make you want to steal a car and ram it into a shopping mall, or grab the next person to walk past you and shove his face into a tree trunk. For example, I’ve heard, more than once, someone who is supposedly into rock music say they hate Nirvana, and that Nirvana sucks. This is utterly berserk. Listen up, pinhead.

First of all, the words “hate” and “sucks” are oversimplified ways to express discontent with something. People use them when they don’t know how else to identify or explain what they don’t like about something. And don’t get me wrong, there is much not to like about Nirvana. (Big hint: It’s designed that way.) But to say Nirvana “sucks” and that you “hate” them is entirely missing the point, like saying “man, Casablanca is so damn sappy,” or “why does Van Gogh paint so many sunflowers?” Let me explain.
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Radiohead has released a composition written in honor of Harry Patch, the last remaining UK veteran of World War I.

Patch died July 25 at age 111, having been one of the world’s last four survivors of the First World War, the third oldest man in the world, and briefly the oldest man in Europe. As Thom Yorke says on Radiohead’s Web site, “I had heard a very emotional interview with him a few years ago on the Today program on Radio4. The way he talked about war had a profound effect on me.”

The song, inspired by Patch’s story, was composed and recorded a few weeks before his death. Johnny Greenwood arranged the strings, Yorke wrote the lyrics, and everything was recorded live in an abbey.

The song’s feel is old-fashioned and awe-struck, the way one would imagine a dirge for every fallen soldier would sound. The lyrics are bleak and dark, evoking an old war documentary or Normandy footage. It is sparse and delicate, and powerful at the same time. The abbey’s echo can be heard in the strings, giving it an ancient, wooden feel.

“Harry Patch (In Memory Of)” is available for download at Radiohead’s site and can be previewed, 30 seconds at a time, through a somewhat irritating flash player. The cost to download is 1 UK pound, or around $1.70. All proceeds are going to the Royal British Legion.
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I know, that headline sounds kind of pretentious. You should be able to like whatever you want, and no one else should have anything to say about it. But the problem is, it’s not usually like that. At least, not until you figure out how to avoid all the judgmental assholes you know. Until then, it seems like someone else always has something to say about the things you like, and the things they think you shouldn’t like.

For example, rock guys aren’t supposed to like rap. It’s not “rock ‘n roll” to like rap, so all the judgmental asshole rock guys (there are a lot of those) will get on your case about it.

Screw that. Here is a list of rap songs you can safely own up to liking, with some points to defend your opinion with, in case your taste in music is descended upon by the over-opinionated quotient in rock fandom. As long as you can shove logic in their face, you win and the assholes lose.

Outkast, Rosa Parks. This song is as accessible to the rock-listening population as any Red Hot Chili Peppers number. Believe it or not, there’s a guitar in there, and it’s playing a pretty sweet melody. There’s also a wood block, which is as rustic and down-home as any cowbell. Plus, the flute sound and lyrics make it seem almost zen, which is more or less the opposite of your stereotypical hip-hop ditty, and hence something rockers can get behind. It’s also named after a pioneer in civil liberties, so that’s worth some history cred. What history cred does Fall Out Boy have to brag about?

Busta Rhymes, Gimme Some More. Not only does it have an actual violin track (borrowed from “Psycho,” no less), the background is filled up with … bass and drums. How much simpler can you get without involving empty coffee cans and three-gallon buckets? Besides the basic appeal of the music, Busta Rhymes is just funny (his name is BUSTA RHYMES). Again, not like some rappers. And the video? On par with Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More” as far as hallucinogenics go. Hallucinogenics are way rock ‘n’ roll, man.
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The human brain is weird, sometimes things just don’t add up. Why, for example, can somebody like peanut butter but hate peanuts? Or try to squeeze through the last quarter-second of a yellow light, but get annoyed when the guy behind them does it? It baffles.

As you may have gleamed from the title, this baffledom extends to none other than the Cold War Kids. I’ve had several run-ins with this OC band (like, as in their music) since they began their steady ascent to popularity a few years ago, and despite a damning heap of evidence suggesting I should like them (a lot), it just seems to be one of those things, and I have no idea why.

To demonstrate the depth of this conundrum (which I’m sure is shattering your world as you read this), here is a list of everything the Cold War Kids have going for them, in my modest opinion:

1. Nathan Willett’s voice is unique, loud and completely amazing.

2. Their sense of melody is pretty much genius.

3. Their choices in instrumentation aren’t obvious, and provide just what each song needs.
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Pop singer Michael Jackson was rushed to the hospital around 1p.m. Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest, several media outlets are reporting.

E! Online reports that an eyewitness saw the 50-year-old Jackson taken to UCLA Medical Center in an ambulance from his Los Angeles home. E! also heard from Jackson’s father, Joe Jackson, who is currently in Las Vegas. He said, “People in Los Angeles called me and are with Michael and tell me he was taken to the hospital … his mother is on her way to the hospital now to check in on him.” The elder Jackson had no information on Michael’s condition.

TMZ also spoke with Joe Jackson, who told them Michael is “not doing well,” as well as to one of the Jackson brothers, who said he is in “really bad shape.”

Jackson collapsed in his home around noon, and staff found him unresponsive, E! reports. The LA City Fire department handled the call, but refused to identify Jackson by name to the media.

“When the team arrived, they saw that CPR was already in progress by someone at the home. The person not breathing was transported to UCLA Medical Center and remains there,” a fire department spokesperson said.

Michael Jackson was due to perform several shows in London next month, but was forced to cancel due to contract problems.
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It’s not Jack Black, but it’s pretty much just as awesome. Ladies and gents, Stephen Lynch:

I’m going to go out on a limb and say the last track on Think Tank, Blur’s almost unknown, oddball final album, is possibly one of the band’s most amazing songs. Hear me out.

First, Think Tank itself is a crazy album. Compared to the lush, mega-produced pop fuzz you normally associate with Blur (Song 2, Beetlebum, Death of a Party), Think Tank is a rickety, rattletrap CD that sounds like it was recorded in a barn. (It was.) Combine the clanky, rusty sound with the African vibe injected into a few tracks, and you already have the planet Pluto of rock albums. Then, factor in that this was the album that split the band, since Graham Coxon, the Grand Baron of Awesome Guitarists and one half of Blur’s songwriting factory, left the band in the middle of everything.

Because of this, only one track on the entire album contains any guitar work from Coxon. So take all of the frustration felt by a guitarist at the twilight of his partnership with a band, and shove it all into one guitar track. That guitar track is on “Battery in Your Leg,” the only song Damon Albarn admits to writing about the band itself. To describe the track: the piano, mostly normal. The lyrics, a little bummed out, but normal. The guitar, like a haunting, boiling, infectious disease. The reason I believe this song to be of Blur’s best is simply because it says the most. And half of what it says is completely independent of the lyrics.

P.S. The band’s reunion was recently reported in the news, and apparently there might be plans for US show dates. I’ll definitely keep an eye on that.

You could be in your car. Or walking past someone else’s car. Or just in your room minding your own business. It doesn’t matter where you are. But sometimes, when you least expect it, all of mother culture’s fury collides in a wave of malicious fate, and you suddenly find yourself exposed to someone else’s horrific, unforgivable taste in music. Sorry, man. It happens to everyone. There’s nothing you can do about it.

Except what I’m doing, which is blogging about it. Here are the top 10 most detested genres of music, as per the average, reasonable person (i.e., me). You might not personally hate all of them – but realize that most people do. So do the world a favor and stop liking them now.

10. Redneck Rock. What? I’m talking about that goatee-sporting, tricep-flexing, urban cowboy grunge that seems to dominate mainstream rock airwaves. These are the bands who sort of sound like metal, but they drape themselves in an arrogant, pseudo-patriotic aggro vibe that endears them to guys who drive raised pickups and their drunken, bar-fighting girlfriends. This is when they’re not writing whiny ballads about how messed up their childhoods were. All of it actually sounds like one band (who might be called Three Doors of CreetherNickelMudd) who shoots all of their videos on the same crumbling hilltop and buys all of their clothes from the same Dickeys outlet. They’re around because radio DJs have to play them or else, and some people are tricked into liking them because they hear them on the radio all day. But in reality, everyone else hates them passionately.

9. Techno. Dave Chappelle’s famous commercial satire depicting a rave girl groovin’ down in the passenger seat of a speeding car highlights the general public’s disdain for this mindless music genre, and so does the fact that no one really hears techno through mainstream channels. Maybe it’s because overhearing techno is akin to having your head clubbed by sand-filled pillow cases, or because listening to more than two songs in a row is like being in a sonic hamster wheel. If you can hear the same drawn-out intro, hyperactive buildup, watery bridge and pounding reentry over and over again, you are definitely on something. So, since most people are not tripping balls at any given point during the day, techno music lands square in the “hated genres” bin, where I’m sure it will just wake up the next morning and keep on pumping away.

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Overheard the Brit band Raygun filming a video shoot near my work building in Hollywood, and wandered down to watch.

Got this pic of The Adj rocking out in front of the big fan:

The Adj, axe and green screen

Hey, it was on an iPhone. They don’t zoom.

I thought the Palladium floor was going to break through during the brief minutes between the end of the Shins’ set and the encore. The crowd was screaming, stomping and chanting like wild animals, and I can only imagine the band was backstage feeling kind of frightened.

The Shins, a band I think everyone should see live before they die, Had just walked offstage after a fun, tight set at the Hollywood Palladium Sunday night, and the crowd immediately went from a mellow, jovial pack of smiling faces to a shrieking, frothing pile of freaks. I guess they didn’t want their serenity to end.

Going on after openers Delta Spirit (who is definitely worthy of their own review, just not over this lunch break), The Shins took the stage amid another uproar, accompanied by a couple of new band members. They started with “Australia” and a few other songs from their latest, Wincing the Night Away. Not to spend too much time on words (there’s a video here, too), they swept through a smooth, clean set of third, second and first-album favorites including the now-becoming-obligatory “New Slang,” “Phantom Limb” and the trippy-in-a-good-way “Sea Legs.” Aside from the album songs, the band also let everyone in on some of their newest material, including “Double Bubble” and the punchy “The Rifle’s Spiral,” which featured some sweet guitar hammering.
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