Another week, another no blog except for this. I’m wondering if giving this a theme or themes might help to keep me on topic. You’ll doubtless be glad to hear that I’m writing, I’m just not writing blogs… not here, anyway.

• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is as close to a perfect album as any other. His other stuff is kind of “meh” compared to that record, but don’t worry, Elton John, so is pretty much everything else that’s ever been recorded.
• I really didn’t used to care for Electric Wizard, but damn that shit is dope.
• Eyehategod aren’t just an insanely heavy band, they’re also incredibly tuneful and melodic. They also know how to use feedback like nobody’s business.
• How did I not even know about Iron Monkey until now? Shit is great.
• Buzzov*en. Yeah. What a fucking band. It’s hard to imagine a time when North Carolina was known for killer, ugly ass rock bands.
• I’m pretty stoked that Hawkwind are coming to LA in October performing Warrior on the Edge of Time.
• Got some more Girlschool on wax. My record collection is seriously getting killer.
• Finally got around to bumping Misanthropic Generation on vinyl. That shit is on one ugly ass color but Disfear never disappoint.

This is turning into the “Music Nick Pell Listened To” blog again. Whatever. You know the drill. Thoughts and top 30 under the cut.

• Every day that you don’t listen to Poison Idea, “Bob” kills a kitten.
• Always better on vinyl, obviously, but most of this Hawkwind is live sessions from the BBC. I know a lot of people think this band is played out, but those people are wrong.
• Pretty sure that The Doors was all last night. Nothing wrong with that. This is one of those bands that gets unfairly maligned because of classic rock radio. The last two albums in particular are gold.
• Speaking of bands that people write off because of classic rock radio, let’s talk about Thin Lizzy. One of the most strikingly poetic rock bands ever and people can only think of that one song, which is actually kind of awesome.
• It’s been a minute since I listened to Roxy Music, but I think I might be due for another binge. One of the few bands that I have everything by on vinyl.
• The Glitter Band are made for road trips.
• Stoic Violence are basically the second coming of Poison Idea. Ignore them at your peril.

• I should probably be embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve never really listened to Pentagram until recently.
• My wife apparently has a taste for Mud.
• Frijid Pink are the best American proto-punk guitar wank band. Yeah, that’s supposed to be a compliment.
• If you don’t like Sheer Terror you’re obviously a massive poser.

This is what I listened to the most in May. Thoughts and my top 30 for the month under the cut.

• I got the five Black Sabbath records I didn’t own that are worth owning and spent one Friday night listening to the entire Ozzy-era catalog… minus the last two records, obviously. I discovered that there’s a lot more going on with that era than I previously thought. Been listening to more Ozzy-era stuff now than I probably ever have.
• Pink Fairies get the title of “Band I Am Most Surprised to See on This List” this month. I know I listened to them, but I guess I didn’t realize that they were quite that important to me this month. If you’re not hip to the Pink Fairies, get hip. A most underrated but incredibly important British band bridging the gap between the UK Underground and the first wave of punk.
• Not a big surprise to see the Grateful Dead on here, especially during a month where one of my cousins visited.
• Lecherous Gaze are probably my favorite band that I learned about this year. I’m kind of curious to see where they’re going to end up on the year end rankings come December.
• The new Alice in Chains record might be their best one yet.
• Two spins of The Basement Tapes puts Bob Dylan & the Band in at number six for the month.
• I really don’t listen to Despise You enough. If you need a quick burst of nihilist energy into your life, just throw on West Side Horizonsand rage hard.
• I got Joe’s Garage Acts II & III in the mail. Frank Zappa is really great stuff, but you totally have to have a good ear for music. I don’t feel like it’s super self-consciously difficult, but most people just don’t have the interest in really listening to music.

• If you don’t like Van Halen, I honestly feel sorry for you.
• A friend of mine scored the first Danzig record for like ten bucks or something. I am currently plotting his death.
• I’m sort of embarrassed to admit that I only really listened to Slayer because of Jeff’s death. Oh well. One thing I discovered is that those first two records are gold. Way better than anything they ever did with Rick Rubin.
• The Hellacopters are probably the one band on here that I’m surprised didn’t make it into the top. I feel like I listened to way more of them than I actually did, apparently.
• Darkthrone just can’t ever make the top eight in anything, but I’m guessing they will do really well on longer-oriented lists. Let’s see where they crop up on the top eight of the quarter in three weeks.
• Beowülf are another band that I need to spend more time spinning. Their first record costs a grip on vinyl. Now that the wife is going to be working, I can actually think about wasting money on it.

Better late than never.

Like everyone else I know, I spent the last 48 hours pouring over season four of Arrested Development. The first show designed specifically for binge watching, the new Netflix-produced episodes are different, to be sure, but the overall result isn’t half bad. That said, I’m not entirely convinced they shouldn’t have just left it alone, but I’m reserving final judgment until the movie comes out. Until then, here are some more in-depth thoughts about getting reacquainted with the Bluth family.

The Good

Arrested Development shined for precisely one reason: the writing. The cast doesn’t hurt, but without the tight and ultra-dense writing, it’s just another ensemble comedy. The writing has, for the most part, remained strong. What’s more, the characters have aged and changed in the five years since we last saw them, which is a nice touch and one that’s not easy to pull off. It’s clear that the writing staff had to craft scripts around competing needs for time and this was done skillfully, even if the results are a bit choppy at time. In short, they did the best they could do with the conflicting schedules of a dozen people who have moved on since 2006.

The Bad

It’s not all good, though. A few things stood out as not just “different,” but detracting from the overall quality of the show. For one, there are way too many cameos, to the point where it’s jarring. More than just nit picks, though, there’s one overriding problem with the new episodes: Nothing holds them together. The original series had the Enron scandals and basically the entire Bush era to sync into. George Sr.’s trial provides a center of gravity for the entire series that this one just doesn’t have. The new episodes have not successfully tapped into to the prevailing Zeitgeist of Obama’s America. Aside from a quick, but genius, riff on drone bombings, there’s not a lot here that’s as impeccably timed as in 2006.

The characters they chose to focus on was also a bit of a problem for me. I found that there was too much George-Michael and way too much Ron Howard. One place where the writing has gone slack is the narration, which now connects the dots for lazy viewers in a way the original series never did. There’s also not enough GOB or Buster or, to my tastes, Gangie or Pop Pop.

The Ugly

And then some things are so bad that they make you wish they’d just left the show in its grave. Showing Tracy was pointless and dopey, a mistake that they can’t undo and I can’t unsee. Using Seth Rogen in a bad wig as George Sr. just doesn’t work and while Kristen Wiig does her best to affect Lucille Bluth, the joke is just too forced to be funny. Michael Cera’s got a producer credit and is on the writing staff, which is probably why there’s way too much George-Michael and his character changes are the most drastic; If I were a betting man I’d say that he’s trying to get out of the corner he’s painted himself into since 2006.

I’m looking forward to seeing loose ends tied up with the new film and it’s always nice to visit with old friends; But the show is off and I wonder if bringing it back was a good idea or not. Part of the reason why the show is so great is that we didn’t have to watch it get old and fat. It’s like when a rock star dies at 27; It’s easy to idealize them because they left us before they could get terrible.

I love when my top eight looks like this: Different bands with a lot of plays. Some thoughts and my top 30 under the cut.

• I really feel like I need more Pink Fairies on vinyl, but that shit ain’t cheap. Listen to this band and you hear the perfect bridge between the twin towers of 70′s British glitter rock and punk.
• It’s been way, way too long since I listened to Despise You. A great band that just gets better as I age. I’m glad to call these guys my friends in 2013. Another thing that would have 15-year-old me shitting his pants.
• Before there was GnR there was Van Halen. This band was the prototype for everything good that came out of the 80s Los Angeles hard rock scene. David Lee Roth is a god among mere men.
• I think The Hellacopters are about to creep their way into my top 30 of all time.
• If Van Halen are the originators, Guns ‘N’ Roses are the rare sequel that’s better than the iconic original. Think of them as Terminator 2: Judgment Day in band form.
• Listening to Beowülf yesterday, all I could think was that I was going to listen to them a lot more from now on. They’re a lot like a punkier version of Kill ‘Em All-era Metallica — that is to say, fookin’ wicked.
• Poison Idea are what a punk rock band should sound like. Poison Idea are what a rock and roll band should sound like.
• Frank Zappa is another thing that I need on vinyl. Fortunately, he comes at lower prices than the Pink Fairies.

• Somehow, Darkthrone always manages to just miss being in the top eight for the week.
• Geordie are a seriously under appreciated gem in the world of British proto-punk.
• I really wish there were more bands kicking around like Portland’s Burning Leather.
• Picked up one of the Summon the Crows records at Vacation Vinyl last week. Decent stuff that’s obviously much, much better on vinyl.
• When the sun comes out and temperatures go up that means it’s time for a little Girlschool.
• That Maäx record is decent, but I want them to drop another one.
• Nope, still not into Mercyful Fate. Sorry.

I woke up today, as I normally do, some time around 7 a.m. I fell back asleep, woke up again half an hour later, cuddled on the wife and went out to the kitchen for my morning coffee. This is my life now; A life where exercise and good eating have replaced staying out late and drinking. It might not be the most exciting period of my life, but it sure is the happiest.

My life has changed a lot since this time last year. I was drinking a lot of hard liquor. I smoked between one and two packs of unfiltered Camels daily. I barely slept; Somewhere between three and six hours per night was average, with less sleep on the weekends and more on weekdays. I survived mostly on processed junk food and the occasional gigantic bag of kale from Trader Joe’s.

Flash forward to now. I exercise almost daily. My diet is mostly whole food based, with lots of veggies and legumes and what not. I quit smoking in September of last year and gave up the ecigs when I lost my battery on the way to my wedding. I still drink, but it’s mostly beer and wine; I don’t really have much of a taste for whiskey anymore.

In short, marriage has been good to me, but it’s more than that. I’ve totally changed my way of life over the past year. The wife helps, but I’m not giving away all of the credit by a long shot. I’ve changed my life in substantive ways, ways that I probably wouldn’t have even thought possible before.

Do I miss getting sloppy drunk and scorching my lungs? Maybe a little bit, especially the cigarettes from time to time. Still, when I look in the mirror and see what I’ve accomplished, when I lay in bed and take deep, deep breaths and when I wake up well rested after seven to eight hours of sleep, I don’t see anything quite so glamorous in self-destruction as I did when I was living it.

Didn’t listen to a ton of music this week, apparently, but I did listen to a surprising number of my favorite bands. Some brief thoughts under the cut.

• Wednesday was Motörhead Day, apparently. I saluted them by doing a special edition of my radio show.
• It pains me that At The Gates only have the one good album, because it’s some top shelf shit. The bands of the neo-thrash revival should have spent more time hearing how these guys changed up the format and less time trying desperately to be Exodus.
• Early Anti Cimex is crucial, but doesn’t do a lot for me. Their later stuff is great. I really need to hit up the Discogs marketplace and place an order.
• Saturday afternoon the wife went out and I decided to spend a little time with Hawkwind.
• I’m really not that impressed with The Head Cat, but I did decide to give them a shot.
• Poison Idea need a new bassist and I’m stuck down here in LA. Fuck my life.
• Entombed are some good ass driving music.
• For some reason this Sunday I thought that The Tom Robinson Band were the perfect music to listen to before taking the wife to brunch.

It’s a strange phenomenon of punk rock adolescence. You get into something that few people are into. Something that, in the pre-Internet age, takes a bit of digging around and commitment to find out about. Then other people find it. Maybe they’re your friends, maybe not. This thing that you’ve desperately wanted to share with other people becomes turf, something that you have to defend with the tenacity of a mother bear.

It might be because you’re used to it being “your” thing, something that made you feel special and in on something. It might be because the mainstream started paying attention and made it too easy for the pink boys to dig on. Whatever the reason, you get mad and surly about it. What should be a shared interest for you and others to bond over now sets your hair on edge whenever it gets mentioned. The first time this happened to me was during the release of Wayne’s World in 1992.

Sure, it’s not Toyota using your favorite grindcore band to sell cars; But when I was 11 years old, I had two tenuous ties to subversive culture: MAD Magazine and Saturday Night Live. The former was self-consciously subversive, a magazine designed to, in the words of Al Jaffee, “corrupt the minds of children.” The latter was a holdover from the dying gasps of Baby Boomer relevance, though it had two features that made it somewhat arcane and occult:

1. The jokes were written for adults… and probably stoned college kids.
2. You had to stay up really late to watch it.

It’s easy to forget now, but during the late 80s and early 90s, Saturday Night Live was a pretty funny show. Topical humor mixed with absurdist caricatures of pop culture cliches. Lest anyone forget, this was the era before Lorne Michaels became obsessed with churning out six mediocre movies every summer. It was a time when Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey dominated the lineup, a time before Dennis Miller was an insufferable prick.

Chief among all skits, though, was Wayne’s World. This isn’t so much because it was the funniest thing on tap. It’s more that it combined my love of laughter with a budding interest in rock and roll and everything related to it. The skit, for people either too young or who have been living under a rock for 20 years, featured two wise cracking headbangers hosting a cable access show from their couch in Aurora, IL. The catchphrases are tired and grating to the ears at this point, but before the film broke they were a sort of cant you could use to identify people in the know. The first time I saw a kid in a Wayne’s World hat — the kind that Wayne himself wore, purchased from the NBC store in New York City — I just about shit my pants with jealousy.

Soon the film buzz started, with all its marketing tie-ins. Mom picked me up a couple t-shirts at the mall and I was stoked. It was like she had come home with a Guns N Roses shirt or something. What I didn’t know then was that the party was over. When summer kicked into high gear, the entire world was Wayne’s World mad. By the time I returned to school, the catchphrases that were once passwords were now common parking lot and playground currency.

My little secret had been ruined, exposed to the outside world. Soon I began to experience another phenomenon for the first (but not the last) time: A total feeling of disgust at something that I had once loved. I never grew out of hanging out with friends and throwing on my VHS copy of the film. I did, however, bristle whenever an outsider discussed it. Me and the insiders could still periodically share in this simple joy. For the most part, however, the fun was over. It had been ruined by t-shirt shops at the mall.

This was the first time I had some secret cultural talisman taken from me and unleashed to the unwashed masses. It wouldn’t be the last. The grunge explosion and its attendant rending of the veil before indie and punk was about to take place. Strange days, indeed.

Another week where all I do is post music that I listened to. Not to fear, though, kids. I feel like I’m coming back online a little bit after a long-term creative funk. You might just hear me frothing at the mouth about things no one else cares about soon.

I listened to a whole bunch of music this week. Top 30 is under the cut. And no, I didn’t listen to Slayer until I heard that Jeff died. Then I listened to a whole bunch.