Thursday, September 6, 2007

Decisions, decisions

Today as I pulled up to my apartment after getting home from work, I thought I was hearing "Black" by the Jesus and Mary Chain, and when I checked to confirm, it became evident that either a.) I was wrong, or b.) Mr. iPod was lying to me. Since I didn't think I had that song on my iPod, I had to concede that the gadget that revolutionized the way the world listens to music (and made Apple Computer the butt of jokes of envy instead of pity) was probably telling the truth and I was, in fact, listening to Wreckless Eric's "Whole Wide World" (too similar to "world wide web" for comfort, I think...if I were the "Eric" in "Wreckless Eric", I probably would have wrecked something at this discovery). It's no secret that bands "borrow" from each other, but sometimes the influence is so obvious that maybe the copycat band should have tried a bit harder to conceal the source of their excessive cool. (Upon further review, JAMC's song sounds like Wreckless Eric's if it were drenched in mid-90s mediocrity, though mid-90s mediocre JAMC is still about a hundred and ten thousand cool points ahead of those bands who created jobs for whatever producer probably washed away the fuzz with some thick chords that probably had to have come from Les Paul or something manly like that...Jaguars are really ladies' cars anyway and the mid-to-late 90s were not about being ladylike to the point of getting rid of the noisy-as-shit Fender Jaguars that made this band make your ears bleed in the first place).

Anyway, what I was trying to get at was that Apple finally released an iPod that would have no doubt allowed me to confirm that the song I was listening to did not really sound like that other song. With 160 GB, I would not have had to give that JAMC song the boot to make room for Hilary Duff's infective cover of "Our Lips are Sealed" and seven thousand songs just like it. So here's my dilemma: I was just getting ready to think about maybe buying a guitar, and now it looks like my $350 may have to be used to finally let me hold my impressive-as-shit collection in my pocket for the off chance that I may want to listen to that one Candlebox song at work after reading about something that reminded me of it (actually the chance of me ever wanting to listen to Candlebox is probably less than or equal to zero; I just couldn't think of any other stupid example to include). Also on the plus side is that I work for a somewhat geeky company and I'm sure I'd be elevated to Han Solo status if I was enterprising enough to get one of those nifty belt clips so my iPod hangs for everyone to see how technologically competent I am as I walk the halls with my headphones on as I hum along to the theme song from Jurassic Park.

On the contrary, the guitar I'm considering is pretty rad and I'm sure that I'd have tons of fun playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "When I Come Around" while striking some badass poses in front of my mirror with the broken frame. Just so you're not left in the dark, I intend to include a picture of this rock-stick (as other contributor Danny and I have nicknamed the instrument that is likely usable as a supplement for manhood deficiency, a name that was probably conceived while we were drunk) and the amplifier I'd be able to get along with it for the price of the iPod.

guitar ^
amplifier^


Now aren't those some sweet toys? I'd actually like to get the aforementioned Jaguar guitar, though at what I'm willing to pay I'd only be able to afford half of one, and I don't think it's particularly easy to play half a guitar when you can barely play one that's all put-together. All in all I'll probably get the iPod, though I'm having trouble deciding between the silver one and the black one and this decision could well end up taking me the next few months to make and by the time I buy one, Apple will release something so much newer and cooler that I'll just feel stupid about it and throw it in a lake or something...fish like Tiger Trap, right?

iPod ^

That post took almost the entirety of Tiger Trap's album to write. It's late and I should go to bed, but first I'd like to congratulate the Black Lips for a well-deserved 8.3 from the folks at P-fork. As Danny mentioned, their new album Good Bad not Evil is kind of a monster killer (which is what my cracker ass thought someone was asking for at the record store I used to work at, when they were looking for an album by Masta Killa). That's all for tonight; we shall meet again.

-Eric aka E-Rock from the Wherehouse Music days (at least I wasn't O-Town or Drewbastank [actually I came up with Drewbastank, which is really fucking clever; sorry Drew]).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just realized that my anti bear rating, when taken to pitchfork's scale, is fucking close to pitchfork's (8.4 to 8.3). Do you think part of their research is reading charz2k before writing any reviews?

Eric said...

I'm pretty positive that we constitute a pretty big part of their research, and that information from us is regarded as highly as from a primary source. By cleverly congratulating the Black Lips (who definitely deserve the ratings they're getting), I was backhandedly reprimanding Pitchfork for stealing your rating.

Sam said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sam said...

Now charz2k,
I didn't mean to treat you oh so bad,
but I did it anyway...

Eric said...

Thanks, Sam. That was priceless.