Guilty Pleasures Week- JGD

Fact: compromise is the cornerstone of every good relationship. Since my girlfriend is a somewhat normal human being, she doesn't particularly enjoy listening to death/grind/black metal every single day - most of the time, she doesn't enjoy listening to it at all. We have several musical staples that we both enjoy a lot (The Pixies, Built to Spill & Dinosaur Jr.), none of which happen to fall under the umbrella of "guilty pleasures" (especially by I.C. standards- you guys are a veritable bog of bad taste). Since we spend a lot of time together in the the car, I started making "compromise" mixes of all of our favorite stuff, which eventually wore out their welcome because there's only so many times you can listen to the same handful of songs every time you take a drive to the coast or whatever.

So I started just throwing a bunch of random songs onto the "compromise mix", blindly assuming that my girlfriend would also definitely like them, based solely on the fact that they didn't contain any double bass, discordant riffs, or bullfrog vocals. Just the most random shit ever. Songs I only sorta liked while growing up in the 80's went directly onto the mix. I'd see a VHS tape of The Goonies and be like "Oh man, I gotta download that 'Good Enough' song by Cyndi Lauper when I get home." I'd see a skate video with a Neil Diamond soundtrack and go home and buy it on Itunes. Someone would send me an adorable link to some pop singer on Sesame Street, and for some reason, I just HAD to have an MP3 it. It all went on the mix, under the guise of creating an enjoyable listening experience for my girlfriend on our way to work.

Turns out that my ever-growing collection of easily palatable 80's soft-pop-rock was more baffling than endearing to my girlfriend, who was at a complete loss as to why I'd think she would enjoy listening to 'You're the Best' several times a day for months on end. My answer is that if you don't get absolutely fucking AMPED when you hear Joe Esposito's 'You're the Best' (made famous during the tournament montage in The Karate Kid), you are basically completely dead inside and should just heave your miserable carcass off the nearest available skyscraper, posthaste. I guess she never actually saw The Karate Kid, though, so she gets a pass from having to kill herself over it.


Look at this fuckin' guy. You seriously think he ever wrote a BAD song?

So instead of picking just one guilty pleasure to focus on, I thought I'd give you a 'best of' youtube collection of all the shitty/awesome stuff that is currently occupying the "compromise mix." It's important that I point out that I actually love all of these songs without a single iota of irony, and have actually removed albums by At The Gates and Dismember in order to have enough room for them on my Ipod. That's right. Cruel Summer takes precedence over Terminal Spirit Disease.


Don Henley - The Boys of Summer
Feist - 1,2,3,4 (Sesame Street Version ONLY)
Bon Jovi - Livin' On a Prayer
Bananarama - Cruel Summer
Neil Diamond - Forever in Blue Jeans
Billy Squire - The Stroke
Cyndi Lauper - Good Enough (from the Goonies)
Night Ranger - Sister Christian
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
The Doobie Brothers - Give Me the Beat Boys
Joe Esposito - You're the Best

Let me close this post with some of the finest and most inspirational lyrics ever penned:

Try to be best
‘Cause you’re only a man
And a man’s gotta learn to take it

Try to believe
Though the going gets rough
That you gotta hang tough to make it

History repeats itself
Try and you’ll succeed

Never doubt that you’re the one
And you can have your dreams!

You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you dow-ow-ow-ow-own

Guilty Pleasures Week - The Goodkind

Booze has always been just a little more important to me than music, and I have always been in a pretty low income bracket, so often, my least listened to albums got traded in for beer money. Since I no longer possess some of the more shameful items of my audio-past, things like Belly's first album or some crazy shit from the guy who used to stock the cigarette machine at my job in Albuquerque, I'll give you this.

I have never been more castigated or verbally abused for anything (even the Belly) as much as for my appreciation of Mariachi. My ex-girlfriend would yell in anger at me for putting it on. At my own birthday party, at which I cooked all the Mexican food that they were eating, "friends" asked me to turn it off. I have only this to say: Chinga sus malditas madres cabrones.
Here is what is still my favorite Mariachi album from actor/singer Fernando Fernandez who was active in the post-World War II period.

Fernando Fernandez 100 Anos de Musica disco 1

(sorry, these files are in .wma format, that said I have the other disc too if you really want it)

Escuchalo perro gringo!

Compralo pendejo!

100% GUILT-FREE

Okay. This 'Guilty Pleasures Week' thing is either the best or the worst idea I've had in awhile. Either way, I'm stoked on it, and would like to encourage everyone to share their deepest, darkest musical secrets here. That's right, I'm not even gonna restrict this thing to "established" IllCon Contributors. Are YOU ashamed? Need to confess a guilty pleasure? Father Cobras is here for you, ready to assure your forgiveness through a series of digital Our Fathers. Send me an email. Let's fuckin' SHAME OUT.
Anyway, before shit gets too ugly or embarassing, I just wanted to share a trilogy of songs I was listening to on repeat yesterday, none of which being in any way shameful or guilt-inducing. Credit where it's due: Sweet Baby Jay shared the first song with me on Facebook yesterday, at which point I countered with the second, only to be completely outdone by Charles T. Heckler's (remember him?) addition of the third.
In a way, it kind of seems to me that these three songs describe some sort of story arc when played in order, a tale of lust and betrayal, deception and jealousy. I can't stop listening to them:







Let these sick jams be your own personal soundtrack to the rejection of shame and impetus to embrace your guilty pleasures. May "them Dirty-Foot Bitches" guide your way.

Guilty Pleasures Week - Aylmer

Despite sitting in hospital and feeling like death, I couldn't resist wanting to be a part of this... so priceless.

Kate Bush is so close to my heart, I can't even feel like she's a real guilty pleasure. She just rules, plain and simple.

The first lyrics I ever memorised were to 1978's "Wuthering Heights", the hit from Kate's first album The Kick Inside. I think I was in 4th grade, and me and my buddy would sing along to it together endlessly.

After all this time, it's still one of my faves.

I love you Kate...

DOWNLOAD

GPW - Millionaires EP

I didn't like this kind of music when I was in high school. But I liked it when they were in high school.



Gross.














GUILT



Man, this is going to get so gross.

GUILTY PLEASURES WEEK - The Thing That Should Not Be

Damn you Cobras. I'll make you sorry you started this.

Okay. So. My musical guilty pleasure is an artist that many of you may well be unfamiliar with, as I'm not entirely sure if she's made much, if ANY, impact on your side of the pond.

I'm talking about *deep breath* Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
















Anyone know who she is? Raise your hands if you do, and for an extra ten points, can you tell me who her mother is and what SHE was famous for? Anyone?













Janet Ellis. Bingo. Co-presenter of terminally middle-class british children's TV show 'Blue Peter' during the eighties. Here she is with fellow presenters Simon Groom, Goldie the dog, whatever the FUCK the Blue Peter cat was called and Peter Duncan, on the right there.

You may recognise Peter Duncan from the AMAZING 'Flash Gordon' movie, ALSO made in the eighties. He's the guy that sticks his hand in the treestump, gets bitten by the thing that lives in it, and begs Timothy Dalton to "Spare me the madness!" by stabbing him to death with his sword.




YEEEEEAH, THAT GUY!





Anyway, I'm just padding this, to try and cushion the blow.

Speaking of which, what do you think has happened here?



















I have my suspicions, but, HELL, this is a family blog.

Movin' right along, Sophie is what they call a 'pop' star over here. She makes 'pop' music with a slight twist - it doesn't appear to be aimed at tweens, homosexual men or menopausal women, which for THIS country is a reeeeeeal fuckin' novelty. I guess you could say it's pop music for GROWN-UPS.

Yeah, yeah, I knoooooow, I'm makin' excuses...but the truth is, her songs are really damn catchy.


Sophie Ellis Bextor - Catch You by bigproblem11

Hell, I can't listen to fuckin'.....ABSU or ANOMALOUS all fuckin' day. I need a little variety.

Also, I don't know if you noticed, but she's also kinda easy on the eye...









































































...she's famous for her long legs, which frankly makes it likely that any potential suitor of MY height would need a fuckin' step-ladder.







































Now, SOME people, CRUEL people, have likened her face to, well, a variety of objects, all of which are wide, flat and white...
















































...but I think they're just jealous of her widescreen beauty. Embittered, twisted people the Brits can be.

Okay, okay, I've padded this out enough. Siiiiiiigh. I'm NOT gonna upload her latest album because...Uhhh...I don't think it's been released yet and we don't want the DMCA all over our asses, right?



















So, instead, here is the third of her four albums for you to enjoy instead.


Okay kids, top THAT 'guilty' pleasure...if you can.


*Oh, and also, if anyone can spot and name the constellation hidden in this post, they'll win an honest-to-goodness PRIZE!!

GUILTY PLEASURES WEEK

Man, it's so cooool being a music blogger. Constantly posting only the most elite and obscure French / Australian / albino / midget / queer-positive experimental black metal, all those rare and out-of-print proto-metal records from the 70's, that weird side project that Kool Keith did with Jim Jay Bullock and half of the Doobie Brothers back in '86... Dude, so much "cred", I love it. Sometimes it's difficult for me to avoid breaking into a gleeful song and dance routine as I walk down the street, just from the enormous pressure of inner hipness bubbling inside me. It's like my own little beautiful secret, knowing that I'll always be so much cooler than everyone else, everywhere--because my taste in tunes is so absolutely obscure, so flawless, so perfect. I like to think of it as "The Unspeakable Pleasure Of Being Me", to quote Alice Donut's Pure Acid Park (you've probably never heard of it).

But this week, we're doing it different. That's right: GUILTY PLEASURES. Your hidden shame. All that mid-90's ska-punk you keep on your iPod for "irony's sake"? I want it. That Beyonce album? Give it up. It's time for honesty and sharing.

I'd personally like to invite challenge all IllCon Contributors to post the most embarassing thing on their personal playback device this week, so that we can all cast judgment and scorn them accordingly.

I'll start:

NOFX - RIBBED (1991)

Still hilarious.

Sick fucking riffs. Catchy choruses EVERYWHERE. Sooooo many classic jams, from the leadoff gem "Green Corn" to the cheesy nu-ska of "Food, Sex, and Ewe" to the witty wordplay of "Together On The Sand" to the album's undeniable centerpiece, "Cheese/Where's My Slice?". I am unashamed, friends. I've been jamming Ribbed on the reg for almost two decades. Soooo fucking obnoxious, soooo overwrought, sooooo amazing. This is only one of FOUR (count 'em, FOUR) NOFX albums on my already-crowded iPod.
Whatchoo got, fuckers? I guarantee I'll out-shame you again later this week.

Bring it.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

NOFX Last.FM/Official website

PS: Seanford, allow me to stop you right there. The quote was "the most embarassing thing on their personal playback device". Present tense. I took that Weezer album off months ago. So just shut up.

Monday Morning Science Corner: SIPHONOPHORES

Siphonophorae or Siphonophora, the siphonophores, are an order of the Hydrozoa, a class of marine invertebrates belonging to the phylum Cnidaria. They are colonial, but the colonies can superficially resemble jellyfish; although they appear to be a single organism, each specimen is actually a colony of Siphonophora. The best known species is the dangerous Portuguese Man o' War (Physalia physalis). With a body length of 40–50 m, another species of siphonophore, Praya dubia, is one of the longest animals in the world.



Siphonophores are especially scientifically interesting because they are composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized. Each zooid is an individual, but their integration with each other is so strong that the colony attains the character of one large organism. Indeed, most of the zooids are so specialized that they lack the ability to survive on their own. Siphonophorae thus exist at the boundary between colonial and complex multicellular organisms. Also, because multicellular organisms have cells which, like zooids, are specialized and interdependent, siphonophores may provide clues regarding their evolution.



Like other hydrozoans, certain siphonophores can emit light. A siphonophore of the genus Erenna has been discovered at a depth of around 1,600 meters off the coast of Monterey, California. The individuals from these colonies are strung together like a feather boa. They prey on small animals using stinging cells. Among the stinging cells are stalks with red glowing ends. The tips twitch back and forth creating a twinkling effect. It is theorized that twinkling red light attracts small fish that have been found eaten by these siphonophores. While many sea animals produce blue and green bioluminescence, this siphonophore was only the second lifeform found to produce a red light (the first being the Scaleless Dragonfish, Chirostomias pliopterus).


Due to their highly specialized colonies, siphonophores have long misled scientists. They were for a long time believed to be a highly distinct group, but now are known to have evolved from simpler colonial hydrozoans similar to Anthomedusae or Leptomedusae. Consequently, they are now united with these in a subclass Leptolinae.



The Siphonophorae have long fascinated scientists and layfolk alike, due to their dramatic appearance as well as the large size and dangerous sting of several species. Compared to their relatives, their systematics are relatively straightforward.

Many siphonophores are bioluminescent, glowing green or blue when disturbed. All siphonophores are predators, and use their many tentacles to capture crustaceans and small fish.




Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.

ABLAZE MY SORROW - IF EMOTIONS STILL BURN (1996)

That Deathrow post yesterday got me thinking about awesome albums disguised in horrendous album covers, and reminded me of the Nagel-meets-Interview With The Vampire abomination that graces the cover of Ablaze My Sorrow's full-length debut If Emotions Still Burn.
Let's not kid ourselves here: "Ablaze My Sorrow" is an awful name for a band, and no REAL metal album should have the word "emotions" in the title. This much I'm sure we can all agree on. But if you are willing to suspend your disbelief for a moment, there is actually a rather tasty little melodic Swedish black/death album tucked away inside, and despite a couple ill-placed bouts of clean singing and sloppy playing, AMS prove themselves a ferocious and engaging beast on all counts. Add in the fact that most of these Scandinavian shredders were 14-16 years old at the time this album was released, and you've got yourself a strangely satisfying little chunk of Swedeath curios.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

LOL at guy on left rocking Ablaze My Sorrow shirt.

Metallum/Last.FM

DEATHROW - DECEPTION IGNORED (1988)

Third album from Düsseldorf, Germany's own technothrash magicians Deathrow. Deception Ignored was arguably their finest hour, surpassing the musical weirdness of 1986's Satan's Gift and 1987's Raging Steel by leaps and bounds, finding the band at their creative zenith before the inevitable disappointment of 1992's Life Beyond. Forget the album cover. Forget the shitty logo. Forget the somewhat middle-of-the-road, standard-issue thrash vocals. This album is a cornucopia of totally next-level compositional ideas, placing Deathrow firmly alongside like-minded acts like Voivod and Coroner in the canon of pioneering extreme/technical/progressive metal acts of the 1980's.
Not for the squeamish or the stupid. Prepare to be chuffed!

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

(Strategically-placed white sneaker prevents scrotum flash. Thrash metal wardrobe malfunction avoided.)

Metallum/Last.FM