Metal Lungies

Something has happened inside of Bristol that is begging for a Carl Monday investigation. Just about a week ago there was the ESPN original programming of the World Series of Darts. But now my attention shifted to Sportscenter, The writers and the producers of the show have either hit the wall for new & fresh ideas or have simply picked up smoking crack during their writing sessions. First let me give you some background info, Sportscenter has been for as long as I can remember my most watched show on a daily basis, I would fall asleep and wakeup to it. Even on Sundays and Saturdays when they tried to stretch the show longer than the content allowed, I still watched. Then you started getting horrible anchors, even having competitions for spots (Mike Hall where are youuuu? oh yeah ESPN UUUUUU…Mike Holmes? dead?), I still watched. Then you started having more and more NASCAR & Golf coverage, I still watched. Then you started to resemble MTV with Chris Conolloy doing pieces, Stuart Scott doing Slam poetry, It was tough to continue watching, but I still did. Now as I reflect and realizing I haven’t seen a Kenny Mayne piece in months its time to say goodbye. You may ask why now do I give up? Well it simple, last night as yours truly was trying to fall asleep to some SC, they had the Yankees highlights on, and because Mike Mussina was in some documentary about crossword puzzles they thought it would be ‘cool’ to incorporate that into the highlight package by having a random clue as a precursor to what the highlight was going to be next of, ie “A boxing video game” that was 8 letters, proceed to show a “punchout” or “Bart’s dad” showed the highlight of a  drum roll please…. a “homer”. Seriously unless I haven’t seen any television in about 11 years and was hiding in the caves of Pakistan, I might have been amused for the first one but not for one to lead into every highlight of the game! A unemployed man’s time is to precious for that crap! I simply can not take the painful viewing SportsCenter (and ESPN) continue to bring to me. So now since I live in the DC area I have the fine choice of letting George Michael (yes, we get the flavoring of the George Michael’s Sports Machine here every night!) lead me in to pass out time aka sleep. Actually I think I’ll choose silence with the tv off, thanks ESPN!

out.

P.S. this doesn’t mean I won’t be watching Dream Job: El Reportero.

Faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings within a single bound, and no need for a pick-up line, Superman saves the world time and time again from nefarious villains bent on global domination and/or the destruction of humanity. But when he’s not averting nuclear disaster, plugging dams with giant boulders, or tying bank robbers up with steel beams, what does our favorite not-a-bird not-a-plane superhero do?

Perhaps in his Fortress of Solitude, after a long day’s work of saving humanity yet again, our Man of Steel takes off his cape, pops a bag of popcorn, puts on his noise-cancelling headphones, and flips on his MP3 player (full of legally purchased music). Rhino Records’ Sound of Superman is a refreshing collection of songs, new and old, that might be his playlist. It accompanies the recent film Superman Returns, and much like Brandon Routh, the young man chosen to succeed Christopher Reeves on the big screen as Clark Kent’s alter ego, this soundtrack does very well in paying tribute to another generation of Superman fans as well as defining its own.

Paramore’s acoustic rendition of “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters holds its own very well, without needing the stadium-filling grandeur of the original. The Films’s cover of Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” is a delight for the headphones, and Nightmare of You’s version of the Flaming Lips’ “Waitin’ for a Superman” is another song you might find yourself singing incessently. Plain White T’s, Maxeen and Motion City Soundtrack all put their songwriting skills to use, helping this soundtrack live up to its name.

And for those of you who are still wondering… no, Three Doors Down is not on this album.

-JP

http://www.soundofsuperman.com/
http://supermanreturns.warnerbros.com/

Recent and Upcoming:

June 13, 2006 – Sound of Superman

Tracklisting:

1. The Academy Is… – Superman
2. Plain White T’s – It’s So Easy
3. The Sun – (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman
4. Motion City Soundtrack – The Worst Part
5. The Films – Sunshine Superman
6. Maxeen – Save Me
7. Paramore – My Hero
8. American Hi-Fi – The Rescue
9. The Spill Canvas – Saved
10. Jack’s Mannequin – Meet Me at My Window
11. The Receiving End of Sirens – Superman
12. Royal – Brainiac’s Daughter
13. Sara Routh – You’re Never Gone

This Classic Track by Joe Cocker, ‘Woman to Woman’ has been sampled in one of the most famous songs of 90s, hip-hop, if you don’t know or recongnize the song its sampled in, you haven’t heard 2Pac’s ‘California Love (shame on you!), produced by Dr. Dre. The original track is a monster.

Mp3 Link

Leon Haywood’s ‘I Wanna Do Something Freaky to You’ is another timeless song from the Dr. Dre used sample catalog, it was used in ‘Nuthin But a G’ Thing’, one of the biggest rap songs he has ever made.

Mp3 Link

Here is one of the songs I liked the most from 2005, and it even came from a Boost Mobile commerical (!!), It is The Game ft. Ludacris & Kanye West and I think the beat is dope and everyone drops a hot verse, while many of you might’ve only heard the 30 second spot, here is the full length version.

Mp3 Link

Ok, Get this. I woke up this morning at 6:00 to go and meet lethal for a Rockcorps volunteer thing for a ticket to see Ricky Ross, and Ghostface. Now we are both students and staying at parents home’s over the summer so when I pulled up at his house I decided to call his cell as to avoid ringing the doorbell and waking the entire family. So I did, and he didn’t pick up. After trying several more calls and waiting for 30 minutes I called a friend to get Lethal’s house number. After waking up, and confusing my friend I drove around the corner (because I’m a coward and would rather piss off his family with a distant phone call than with a direct knock on the door). After several unsucessful phone tries I was fed-up with Lethal’s lack of initiative and decided to get on the train and go down to DC myself to do the volunteer work (mind you, I did call Lethal another 10 times or so during the trip). After a 45 minute train ride I arrived on the outskirts of Northern DC. (Note that throughout my commute I had been frantically looking for other volunteers and had found none.) I got off at the train station and came to find that the directions I had recieved from boost mobile left me at about a 7 mile walk from the station to my destination. This left me with no other option but to walk, a decision that would have made me late (and thus ineligible), and robbed as I had to walk through about six miles of “Rough DC”. Frustrated I decided to cut my losses and head back home. After an hour-long trip I arrived back at my local metro station and went back to my house relaying the sob story to my brother. Then, around 11pm I recieved a phone call from Kathy at boost mobile. Embarassed because of missing the event, I cut off her talking immediately explaining my entire story in detail, at which time she replied to me “i’m very sorry your directions were wrong sir, but the event is tomorrow.”

I was speechless for an hour. I checked the dates so many times I had been building up for so long and I was a day early? Later I recieved a call from lethal which started with him suggesting that I refrain from crack-cocaine use that early in the morning. I explained the whole story and felt it worthy of a post. Hilarious.

Full Concert coverage from Me and Lethal will come following the concert on Sunday….err…..Monday
I need to lay off that pipe………

Late.

The embarrassingly catchy punk pop machine that is Cute Is What We Aim For starts off their debut album with something very few would dare: bare vocals. Sans instruments, drums, or any musical cover, you have six seconds of the honest and somewhat shaky Shaant Hacikyan in front of you, before he steps back under an umbrella of guitar and drums.

This album has a lot of things, and modesty is certainly not one of them. The band offers no apologies for filling their songs to the brim with lyrical complexity – assonance, alliteration, and tons of internal rhyme – case in point, the album title, The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch. Your high school English teacher would be proud.

Few bands would drop lines like “I’m obsessed and stressed with this mess I can’t think of things” for fear of overdoing it, or looking like they took notes at Open Mic Freestyle Friday. But to Cute’s credit, they are persistent and consistent enough that they actually sound like they know what they’re doing.

The lack of modesty goes hand in hand with the abundance of narcissism and self-admiration. It is best summed up by the intro to one of their songs: “I’ve got the gift of one-liners.” If that doesn’t shout SELF-INVOLVED, please adjust your sets.

Content aside, the delivery is adorned with clean low-distortion guitars, well-timed hooks, and synth-friendly versolos (when a lead guitar doesn’t do a solo, but does that repetitive, distinguishable arpeggio over a verse… okay, I just made that term up).

Curiously, there has been plenty of negative press surrounding this band, with accusations of heavy post-production on this exact album (Auto-tune Works Wonders!) and large funds from Daddy pushing the success and signing of this band to Fueled By Ramen. But bad press is good press, and if they can do it on stage as well as in the studio, then to hell with the critics.

-JP

http://www.cuteiswhatweaimfor.com/
http://myspace.com/cuteiswhatweaimfor/

Recent and Upcoming:

June 20, 2006 – The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch

In a world filled with Fall Out Boy fifty-word-minimum-essay song titles, you still have to give it up to Escape The Fate for the first track on their debut EP There’s No Sympathy For The Dead, entitled “Dragging Dead Bodies in Blue Bags Up Really Long Hills.” So relax critics, this is a not a serious metal/hardcore band producing a concept album using blood-curdling guttural screams to convey their feelings on the idea of death. And honestly, if you’re looking for deep lyrical meaning in metal and hardcore, you might looking in the wrong place. Metalheads, please correct me on this one.

Undoubtedly, the accessibility of ETF’s sound is both their strength and weakness. When a new band provides the goods, fans either embrace it, proclaiming their eternal love for them, or reject it, citing buzz words such as “sellout”, “mainstream”, or “I don’t listen to that emo crap!”. More and more people are paying attention to record labels too, and what they stand for. In ETF’s case, Epitaph, the label started by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, has a long history of punk and punk rock acts, and is certainly a difficult label to live up to.

But whatever the verdict, the EP is full of busy vocal arrangements (singing, screaming, sing-screaming, and layering up the butt), tempo changes, double bass drumkick action, and when the guitars calm down enough, some pretty decent soloing. There is never a dull moment on this album, and if there is, you are probably too busy thinking about how you are really too good for this album.

Folks, the key is to not take them too seriously and enjoy the music, if you do in the slightest bit. Honestly they sound completely silly on their website, “‘I don’t wanna come off like an asshole,’ says outspoken Ronnie, ‘but we’re gonna be that change in music. I have a vision. I want people to have fun, put their fists in the air.'” I mean that’s not exactly going down in Bartlett’s, but whatever. Save the drama for your mama!

-JP

http://www.escapethefate.com/
http://myspace.com/escapethefate/

Recent and Upcoming:

Sept 26, 2006 – Dying Is Your Latest Fashion
May 23, 2006 – There’s No Sympathy For The Dead (EP)

In an effort to spice things up around here, The Artist Formerly Unknown As Djlethal01 has entrusted me to bring a fresh new perspective to Metal Lungies, and I’ll be reppin’ the Midwest Indie/Emo/Rock/Punk/Hardcore scene. To be honest I can’t claim to be an expert in anything; I’m not exactly the guy who goes out to every show possible, I don’t have the rare 7″ limited press transparent blue with glittered edges of your favorite band, but I try to keep updated with fresh music and my mind open to great possibilities.

While my knowledge of general music is limited to whatever is being overplayed on mainstream radio, I love lots of things passionately: Saosin, Escape The Fate, Underoath, At The Drive-In, Saves The Day, Emanuel, The Kooks, Taking Back Sunday, Alkaline Trio… the list goes on, gets confused, contradicts itself, and so on. For those inclined to post comments, I welcome all honest opinions and blind hatred! Anyway, look for my inane ramblings, bland reviews of amazing bands, and witty banter.

Love peace and unity.

-JP

I really like the guys jogging outfit..shit I like hers too!

After such a phenomenal response (telepathic of course, see: 0 comments to the post) to the fart in the shoe aisle story, here is another ‘story’.
So being the gadget whore that I am, I’ve been jogging (or “yogging” as my gf calls it because..she um prefers to make her j’s “soft”) more than usual thanks to apple’s nike+ ipod nano thing that tracks your runs and makes pretty graphs and so on, I’m sure even the grandmas at retirement communities have heard about it by now so I’m not going to explain anymore what it is (OR GOOGLE DAMMIT). So the Jog starts off normal as any other, but before I am 30 seconds into it, a car speeding by with someone sticking out of the passenger window that yells “HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO“, (and reacting as if my only interaction are the rats at petsmart) I jump up and get startled mid-stride as the car passed by me (in retrospect I think it might have been a friend of mine driving by (I SWEAR I HAVE THEM, I HAVE PICTURES!!). Anyway I keep jogging and not a few minutes later thanks to all the wonderful forest chopping they are doing in the county I spot not one, not two but THREE deer on the fucking sidewalk. Being afraid they will triple-team me into naughty things I have to run into the road to run around them. OK that should be enough right? Nope. A few minutes later an early 90’s chevy/ford red pickup truck comes to a crawl and a scruffy looking man with a pony tail, yells out to me if I need a ride.. (??? I wasn’t running from the police.) My elementary schools lessons of not to get into strangers cars overcomes my middle-age sketch looking male fetish, and I just ignore the man and keep running (OK I’m not gonna play it completely tough I sped a up a little). Then with all the lumbering that’s going on to build a new road to the interstate comes a construction site and the sidewalk I had to go through a bit later was really thin because there was an ass load of work near there with a lot of crew (even at 9pm!!), and I noticed there was a mid-20s couple walking senior citizen style in a single file, so I had to zig zag through them and almost fall into a ditch to pass them, as I passed them I heard some grumblings and simply waved in apology, they probably thought I was showing them up. So the rest of the way there weren’t much things to note. But when I got home, I dropped my iced strawberry-kiwi (NO Formula 50 in this house!) vitamin water in kitchen spilling all over, so i just proceeded to roll around and soak it up with my sweaty body (OK that’s a lie, I had to use a roll of bounty paper towels to clean that shit up). Oh yeah, my run was only 6 seconds off my average.
So there you have it kids if you like deer, old men in pickup trucks or other shit, please come to Maryland and jog at 9pm on the streets!

out.

With today Metallungies is relaunching, and I promise you we have so much stuff coming you’d be a fool not to bookmark us.

Some shit I want to drop on you guys real quick…

Rick Ross showing the best rap beard this side of Freeway.

First in celebration of me being able to see RICKEEEYYYYYYYY ROSSSSSSSSS along with Ghostface in a few weeks, check out a preview by the Fader of the record here. I think it is going to be a hot summer album.

Carl Monday is saving mankind.

Now this is by far and I mean by very far my fav. story of the year, maybe the decade. It comes thanks to the amazing folks over at deadspin. There is a investigative reporter in Cleveland that did a story on umm some behaviors of Library patrons… the rest is internet history. The saga has lasted a few months and could be labeled the Mike Cooper Saga. Check out the the video that started it all here, then the saga came to a very beautiful conclusion this past week in court. You know Carl Monday is special when he has his own
Fan Page. There better be a part deux with maybe a hardware store stripper or something. PLEASE.