Goddamn, that shit is small!Anyhoodles, The Gaslight Anthem are on the cover of K! #1222. This is a good thing and even though I'm having one of those silly moments where the cool band you like is no longer your cool band (don't try and fake like it's never happened to you!), it's great that these guys may be following Against Me! in blowing up bigtime. It'd be sweet too, because then my friends wouldn't have to travel down to somewhere in Birmingdonshire to check them out as they could just play Glasgow venues. Sweet! And on with this week's issue...
1. KERRANG! REALLY CAN BREAK A BAND. RIGHT? (p. 22-26)
Gallows, Dragonforce, Cancer Bats, Madina Lake, Against Me!: something all these bands share in common is that they arguably broke out from their respective scenes into the public consensus via the K! hype machine. Sure, certain bands go on to hate the magazine or some at least make snarky comments about the publication, but Kerrang! and its writers love to show its readers bands they love. And Ian Winwood, the writer of this week's cover story, has pushed for The Gaslight Anthem. Now on the one hand, this is pretty unsurprising stuff, seeing as Winwood has always favoured bands from the US punk scene (e.g. Bad Religion, Converge, the aforementioned Against Me!); yet on the other hand, TGA have never been covered in the pages of the magazine. (Well, that's a lie actually. I saw an ad for them in the Live listings... as if that truly counts).
The piece, despite seeming pretty unremarkable to me, does its job - you get an idea of where the origins of the band came from (vocalist/guitarist Brian Fallon decided to form a band after being rejected from art school), their work ethic ("We're not afraid of struggle") and an idea of what the music's like ("the sound of punk rock rediscovering its own soul", psshh). Introduction sorted. Now, can K! really have the power to make this band popular? It's one of the biggest publications of its kind, still has some kind of influence on its readers, and has pushed bands like the ones mentioned above to a level past mere notoriety. But (putting aside the accessibility of their music for one moment) do you really see The Gaslight Anthem being one of those bands that grows massive? Take a listen if you haven't already and think about it - can this week's inclusion go towards "breaking" TGA? Is it even possible? Or am I thinking there's too many ulterior motives behind the article?
The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
2. THINGS I'LL NEVER GET TO DO, PART 273 (p. 27)
One time, travelling through Peru with family on a badly air-conditioned bus through really goddamn high roads, we found ourselves stopping off for some paella for lunch. The stuff was too much for my stomach to handle, so I headed for the toilets only to be utterly terrified at what I saw. I won't go into too much detail, but I remember two very dirty footstands being dangerously close to the... hole. Long story short, I didn't go, and that toilet remains the worst I have ever been near. Ever.
So why do I get weird, bordering-on-insane heart pangs when I know that I'll never be able to top this experience by venturing into the toilets at legendary NYC club CBGBs? To quote Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba: "I've taken a shit in some pretty bad places. I took one in CBGB's and that place is gnarly. There was no door and it was filthy." Dude, I'll never get to walk in that and flinch. 'Tis a sad day.
3. JAEGERMEISTER, KINGS OF METAL SPONSORSHIP (p. 47)
Maybe it's because I don't drink, but I'm never going to understand how an obscure 73-year-old German digestif became the metal drink of choice. Seriously, Jägermeister? It's expensive as fuck - like the metal equivalent of Moet - and apparantly utterly rank. But despite all that, I've witnessed too many bands publicising the shit. I actually remember being at Download a few years back and catching virtuoso prog-metallers SikTh whore themselves out for the brand: "We just came to the festival site and thought we should drink down some fucking Jägermeisters!!!" Embarassing. Yet it even ends up being the drink of choice on the Rockstar Energy Mayhem tour ("20 bottles of Jägermeister on ice", sheeeittt). Hell, Rockstar Energy is a soft drink yet they get owned by the elk'n'cross? Something's gotta give.
Hell, what do I know. I'm sticking with a Shirley Temple. Metal!
Absurd - Ein Jaeger Aus Walhall
4. LARS ULRICH FAILS TO MAKE US FEEL SAFE (p. 7)
I know a lot of people don't believe Metallica are dropping a good album this year with Death Magnetic and, to be totally honest, drummer Lars Ulrich doesn't really fill me full with confidence. "I can say that this is the best album Metallica could have made!" Now, it's all in one word: "could". Yes, "could" fills me with a little bit of dread as it makes me think that they knew they are able to do so so so so much better. Maybe. I guess if you look too much into sentences like I do, Ulrich's just setting you up for disappointment. (Maybe not, seeing how I am one of the twelve people in the world who actually kinda liked St. Anger. I know, I know, I'm an idiot. And I'm seeing them next week for the third time, so yeah, I call bullshit on myself.)
5. K! GRUDGINGLY DOES SPIN (p. 8)
"Hinder will releasing the much anticipated fo--" Woah, hold up. Hold up. Seriously? Hinder's new record is eagerly anticipated? Seriously? I'm leaving this one to the good Axl Rosenberg. (Side note: noting the producer of the band's new record, K! put Puddle Of Mudd as Puddle Of The Mudd. Wow, that shows how relevant they stayed.)
6. GERARD WAY WINS COMIC BOOK AWARD; DESERVES IT (p. 12)
Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Ba won an Eisner award for Best Limited Series for The Umbrella Academy! Sweet. Now, go check out the comic, fucknuts.
Rihanna feat. Jay-Z - Umbrella
7. REALLY? VICTORY? ...SERIOUSLY? (p. 42)
I'm not going to rag too long on Hawthorne Heights, seeing as how most of David McLaughlin's article addresses the tragic death of guitarist/vocalist Casey Calvert last year. But the band are just about to drop their third record, "Fragile Future", on none other than Victory Records, the record label they were embroiled in with a legal brouhahaha since 2006. Huh?
"We said down together and settled our differences," says singer JT Woodruff; "The lawsuit taught us that it is best to handle your problems by talking them out. Filing a lawsuit is just so impersonal. You fight and fight and fight and in the end, nobody wins." Yeah, but going back to Victory Records, notorious for label boss Tony Brummel's hard-headed, aggressive and creepy leadership/marketing/fuckery tactics (as you can read in former Victory employee Ramsey Dean's exposé "The Horror" - well worth reading, by the by)? Erm...
Hawthorne Heights - Silver Bullet
8. UGH (p.1-71)
Seriously, that's all I've got this week. Have some mp3s from Misery Signals's 3-K-rated "Controller", because it truly is the shit.
Misery Signals - Set In Motion
I'm in Belgium next week. Take it east. Yes, east.
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