Letter to Slagle Clause

Dear Slagle Clause,

Last year you came by on Christmas and gave my sister a black eye.  Is that your idea of a gift?  Did you think that would be funny?  Why would you do that?  Well I’m hoping you come back this year because I’ve been lifting all year and I’m ready to kick your ass.  You got my address and I’ll be waiting.

Ready for a fight,

Tommy

Dear Tommy, 
The reason she got the black eye is because Slagle Clause WARNED her, NO TEETH. She deserved it. You want to try this year? Keep waiting, just like your mother is waiting for child support. Slut.
                                                           Love,
                                                           Slagle Clause

Christmas love/hate

There’s a thin line between love and hate but this thing falls way to the left AND the right of that line

LOVE:

Christmas-Seeing old friends, spending time with family, shopping for gifts for loved ones, receiving gifts, hearing Christmas music everywhere, drinking eggnog, going to midnight mass.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

HATE:

Christmas-Seeing old friends you don’t wanna see, spending time with family you don’t even like, having to buy gifts for loved ones, receiving crappy gifts you don’t even want, hearing Christmas music everywhere,  drinking too much eggnog, being guilted into going to midnight mass.  It’s the most horrible time of the year.

Christmas Playlist Thoughts

So things have been hectic with the holiday season as is almost always the case. Gotta send cards to and buy gifts for relatives you see once a year or less regardless of whether or not you’re in a comfortable place financially to do so. It’s never much fun. That being said here’s the best thing I could come up with for this month’s issue. Think of this as my own spin on the 12 days of Christmas. Except instead of gifts it’s just observations I made throughout a slow Monday at my warehouse job. So in no particular order here are:

The Top 12 things the playlist I compiled to listen to at work on Monday December 13, 2010 have reminded me of:

1. Rainfall is The Apples In Stereo’s second greatest song right after Baroque.
2. I do not have a favorite Kinks song. Victoria and Well Respected Man will always be locked in a dual to the death.
3. The beginning of Mephiskapheles’ Bad Toupee is possibly one of the greatest moments in the history of percussion.
4. The snap at the end of the final chorus in The Zombies’ Tell Her No is the single most well placed snap ever recorded.
5. The Grains say “Punk rockers in the USA” as opposed to “UK” in their cover of White Man In Hammersmith Palais. I Hadn’t noticed this on any of my prior listens. It’s a neat little way of making it their own.
6. Time Out For Fun is both Devo’s greatest and most underrated song.
7. No matter what my wife or other people who get super into xmas tell me to the contrary, a song simply having “Christmas” or some variation thereof in the title such as Descendents’ Christmas Vacation or Tom Waits’ Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis counts as a holiday song.
8. While I don’t wish Rivers Cuomo any actual harm or misfortune I do wish something would put him back in a dark enough mindset to write another Pinkerton.
9. When The Ergs were recording their dub version of A Million Perfect Days there was talk of having the studio engineer record a “bong solo” over the instrumental break. The thought makes me chuckle every time I hear the song.
10. Bob Dylan’s holiday album from last year makes him sound a bit like Tom Waits on some tracks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Waits takes a cue from this and releases one of his own.
11. Lemuria has gone through a few different bassists in recent history. What if they merged with Motorhead to form Lemmy-ria? Could the world handle something that badass?
12. Every second of Radiohead’s nearly six and a half minute Paranoid Android is totally necessary.

And a partridge in a pear tree. Or something to that effect. See you next year folks.

Beanies and Scarves

That's right, just in time for the Alco-holiday's 2010, we got beanies and scarves.  Beanies are available in a bunch of colors, scarves are pretty limited.  Get em' quick.

Issue #3 "Album I Love"

Mephiskapheles – “Maximum Perversion” – 1997 Moon Ska Records - There are albums that came out at pivotal times in your life that, on top of being great, hold such sentimental value that they always take you back to that time and mindset. I thought of that as I drove into work this morning and Less Than Jake’s “Automatic” came on my ipod. As you all know that’s on their album, “Losing Streak”, arguably their greatest. Listening to that album always takes me back to my teens in the mid to late 90’s when I first saw them headline Ska Against Racism at Montclair University and when I won my cassette copy of that album on one of the wheel games down at Seadside and then played it incessantly in whatever boom box, walkman or car stereo I had access to. But everybody already knows that album rules and doesn’t need me to tell them so. As luck would have it though my ipod seemed to sense I was wistful for the 3^rd wave ska explosion and the next track was “Introduction To The Yellow Passion” from Mephiskapheles’ underrated 2^nd album “Maximum Perversion”. Despite this album coming out at the same time as many of the other benchmarks of the genre it somehow seemed to slip through the cracks for most people, myself included. I actually purchased this album almost a decade after its release. I did however have several compilations (a lost concept- it seems nobody’s putting out good cheap comps like they used to) that had tracks from this album on it. All of those comps are also worth owning, but for now I’m gonna stick with talking about actual albums. Mephiskapheles for the most part were geniuses in the sense that they knew people would enjoy them most in smaller dosages, so they just gave submitted songs to comps like crazy which is how most of us learned about them. That and satanic imagery is always fun for teens trying to be rebellious. Their first album that more people are familiar with, “God Bless Satan” really milks the latter whereas “Maximum Perversion” is more about “okay you know what our gimmick is, and we’re happy you dig it, but check out our musicianship cuz we’re all really awesome at what we do”. Don’t worry they knew what their bread and butter was and still have a couple tracks on there that give props to the Prince Of Darkness. But my personal favorites “Attack Of The Geniuses”, “Bad Toupee” and “Break Your Ankle Punk” don’t seem to be about religion or really much of anything in particular other than showcasing incredible horn and rhythm sections. Seriously there’s a lot going on in ska and drummers typically fade into the woodwork, but this guy makes you take notice. Check this album out you’ll be glad you did. You can most likely find it on Half.com for less than $5 with shipping. What have you really got to lose? (with the possible exception of your soul)  SCRUFF

Issue #1 "Album I Love"

Tom Waits - "Rain Dogs" released 1985 on Island Records –

Today I was cruising around running various errands unemployed people run (getting cotton balls for my fiancé and a cheap vcr from Craig's List for myself if you're wondering) listening to my ipod when
" Union Square" by Tom Waits came on. As I often think whenever a song from Rain Dogs comes on, "holy crap this is a great album".  Tom Waits as you may or may not know is an acquired taste. He's got a gravely voice and loves macabre subject matter and often employs creepy circus/carnival instrumentation to recite said macabre gravelly tirades over. This is one of his more accessible albums which still aren’t to say that many will care for it. It was a favorite of mine to put on during my brief stint working at the Hot Topic in Woodbridge Center back at the turn of the century.  To watch the confusion and annoyance of the younger patrons wondering why we didn't just put on more nu-metal or emo teeny bopper pinup bubblegum what have you, which were sadly the two most prevalent genres at the time? This was the first album by Tom Waits I bought. Like most people of my generation my first introduction to him was seeing the video for "I Don't Want to grow Up" (famously covered by The Ramones) on Beavis and Butthead. Shortly after that I noticed an album by the same guy within my Dad's cd collection. It was 1973's live album "Nighthawks at The Diner" (also flawless and worth owning, but that's for another time). Upon one of the many visits I would make to the no longer existing CD World at Menlo Park Mall back during that time because of their expansive used section and seemingly random selection of non-used albums to put on sale for under $10 I found "Rain Dogs" for the too good to pass up price of $6.98 and it's one of the wisest purchases I've ever made. The opening track "Singapore" has been one of my favorite mixtape/playlist staples ever since.  Other favorites include the closer "Anywhere I Lay My Head" with it's New Orleans jazz funeral outro, the title track "Rain Dogs" featuring the unmistakable staccato guitaring of Mark Ribot, country song it's okay to admit liking "Blind Love" and the almost impossible to classify genre-wise trifecta of "Tango Til They're Sore", "Cemetery Polka" and "Jockey Full Of Bourbon". This album also contains "Downtown Train" which Waits is the original writer of. It's a far cry from the more polished but much less soulful version popularized by Rod Stewart. If you love things you get to describe using words like quirky, atmospheric and peculiar, then odds are you'll love this album. And if for some reason you don't, somebody that's fortunate enough to find it in the used bin after your giving up on it surely will.
Scruff Cardinale                                                                                              

Issue #3 The Turnbucklers Interview

LP: So I think the first question everyone wants to ask you guys is, do you guys all know karate?

F: I’m a 2^nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do

A: We’re 2/3rds karate trained

LP: Really!  I was kinda only kidding.  Are you guys busting my balls?

F: No, I got it probably when I was 12 or 13 and quit after that.  Andy what are you?

A: I’m only 1^st degree

LP: Wait, you’re a black belt too?

A: Hell yeah!  It’s a pre-requisite

F: We’re still training Sean

LP: I’ve known Sean for awhile(Sean used to play guitar in Band of Felons), but what are your guys backgrounds?  Ever been in any other bands?

F: Not really, maybe in high school.  I used to play a lot of guitar and I just stopped.  Then I jumped into rap.  Rapping and making beats.  Me and Andy started doing shit and that shit didn’t work out.  Started hanging out wit Sean and then Andy played some psychobilly shit and I just wanted to make some fucking rock and roll music.

A: I was in some band when I was like 12 or 13 and the name was TAJ because the name of the people in the band was Trevor, Andy, and Joe.   I know its lame, but, those guys are in a band together now.  I forget what their called.  We played a lot of Jimi shit.  The guitarist was nice. 

LP: How did you guys all get together?  How did the band start?

S: I met this guy(Andy) at Guitar Center.  He just came up to me and was like   (making fun of Andy) “Cool guitar dude.”

A: So I’m leaving, ya know how the guys gotta check your shit when you leave, and I’m like, “who’s this asshole playing on a nice ass guitar with an AFI sticker.”  I walk over and it was you.  That was a nice ass guitar though.

S: So a few weeks later I was hanging out with my boy and we went to Andy’s house, He’s like(again making fun of him) “Yo, your that dude from Guitar Center.” I was and we started hanging out.

F: One of the first direct interactions I had with Sean was smoking weed on the side of dudes house and I come out and I’m like “I think I got my girlfriend(at the time) pregnant” and you were just like “UMMMMM”.  I barely knew you at the time.  I just needed to tell somebody.

LP: And then smoking weed lead to playing music?

S: Yeah.  The more we hung out, the more we jammed.  Now we’re a band together.  We drink and play video games too.

LP: So you guys are friends.  Y’all hang out.  Because sometimes bands aren’t friends and don’t hang out.  I think that shit’s weird.

S: Yeah, we hang out all the time.  We’re guaranteed hanging out at least once a week because of practice.  But we hang out more then that.

LP: I didn’t even know Sean knew how to play the drums?

F: Don’t let’em fool ya, he plays a nasty bass too.

A: Sean’s like a band Swiss Army knife.  We were all amped cuz we finally had a drummer, bassist, and guitarist.  We were just gonna go over Sean’s house and play on his shit because we could.  We got lucky he’s a pretty good drummer.

LP: He even sings behind the drums, are you looking into to getting the Britney Spears headset.

A: Nah man, Tommy Lee headset.

LP: Why don’t you guys let Andy sing?  I see him mouthing the lyrics during the songs.  It’s just mean the way you don’t give him a microphone.

A: I know right.

F: We want Andy to sing.  He just doesn’t

S: He sings on the record.  We all sing on the record.  He does the “Whoa’s” and the “Hey’s”.  We want him to sing more, we just won’t pressure him.

LP: I wanted to ask you guys about that.  You just got done recording at Killers and Saints, how did that go?

A: I think my leg is pregnant from Sam’s dog(Chuck) humping it.  Recording was cool though because Sam plays, so he gets it.  He was helpful.  Recording the music only took like a 1 ½ days.  Vocals took longer

S: We did 5 songs first and then went back and did 2 more.  It was real good.

LP: Good, What was the name you used when you first went and recorded?

S: The Bonus Brothers

LP: The Bonus brothers, that shit was gay.  The Turnbucklers is so much better.  How did The Turnbucklers come up?
S: We finished tracking and I was listening to the music by myself, and this is after all kinds of deliberation of discussing bands names, and I wanted a name that fit the music.  The recording came out like, real fast sounding and I thought it sounded kick ass.  I wanted a name that kicked ass.  I thought of wrestling and “Off the turnbuckle”.  There it was, The Turnbucklers.

LP: Yeah your name makes me think of wrestling and that’s bad ass.  Anything else? Any shout outs?

F: Yeah quote this, “Encarnacion”.  Nacho Libre is our muse.  Shout out to my son, Shane.  Sam dude, gotta thank Sam.

S: Somerville Town Drunks and Post No Bills- you guys hook us up with shows.  Thanks to my parents.  They let us jam at their house and cook us dinner.   And of course, thanks to Sam from Killers and Saints.