Happy 50th Birthday Bruce Campbell!

When I saw that it was his 50th birthday today I just had to do this.....

Ash: Ok you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my boomstick! The 12-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about $109.95. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?

My Top 5 Favorite Bands

Well this post lists my 5 favorite bands that I still love today.  Short lived obsessions with spirit-of-the-moment bands from my high school days have been filtered out for your convenience!  Here we go.

#5) June of 44

Sure, bands like Slint and Rodan originated the Louisville KY sound - the sound that fuses 20-something existential angst with nautically themed lyrical imagery and angular guitar hooks, but June of '44 are the ones that perfected it. Jeff Mueller's talk/scream vocal approach perfectly complimented his lyrics that read like excerpts from beautiful literature that I'm too lazy to seek out. His riffs were one of the barrels of their musical shotgun, the other was Sean Meadows'. Together they interwove melodies that were at times delicate, jarring, and just plain balls out. Fred Erskine's bass lines and occasional trumpeting gave a haunting underscore to their music, and Doug Scharin's drumming: Jazzy, often catching you off-gaurd, yet completely fierce and rocking when it needed to be. I've been a fan of theirs for about 10 years and I can still go back and listen to Four Great Points or Anatomy of Sharks and feel totally blown away, rocked, and occasionally - eloquently alone.



#4) Polvo

If June of '44's guitars are a double barreled shotgun, then Polvo's are dueling swords that morph into spaghetti. I first heard them in '96, when Exploded Drawing was released and was completely blown away. At a time when I was just getting into playing guitar, it was exactly the kind of music I was hoping to find but didn't know it until I heard it. Their work completely ahnihilated any concept of what verse-chorus-verse songwriting was supposed to be. There were literally no rules. You could do anything you wanted with a song. You could take the riff away on a tangent and forget everything behind you, all the while being gloriously out of tune. If Pai Mei had a bunch of bastard children kicking around China who got together, did a bunch of acid, and started playing guitars that sounded like the strings were about to fall off - it would be Polvo.



#3) Calexico

Yet another band that I didn't know I was missing until I heard them. They're blend of dusty-desert-morricone-mariachi-folk is so perfect it seems like it had to exist. At their best, their songs are like soundtrack music to a film in the desert about addiction, lost love, and family members gone missing. There is no way the state of Arizona and guitars could exist without this music being made.



#2) Fugazi

I was 17 and still listening to Tool when a friend in high school recommended Fugazi to me. I went out, bought Repeater on vinyl, and listened to it when I got home. Aside from "Shut The Door", I didn't like it. I thought it was boring. Plain and simple. This is the musical equivalent of eating Franco American spaghetti all your life and then having a gourmet pasta dish made in the heart of Florence plopped in front of you. My palette was so ignorant, I literally could not assimilate what I was taking in because it didn't immediately fit into the genre of music MTV and cock-rock radio stations had trained me to like. I quickly sold the record and forgot about Fugazi. Flash forward to a couple months later, I'm at the same friends house and he's playing the Margin Walker EP. All of a sudden it clicked. Fugazi fucking rocked. Fugazi was real. Fugazi was pure. I quickly bought up their CD's including Red Medicine which had just been released and my musical identity as I now know it was formed. That summer ('95) I listened to Red Medicine constantly. In the coming months I sold off my Tool, Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam like a growing boy sells off his GI Joe's. Suddenly finding them lifeless and uninteresting. After Fugazi, there was no turning back. I could never again hear the spoon-fed-corporate tripe that passes for rock in the major media the same way again.



#1) Ween

One day in 1984 a god known only as The Boognish descended upon Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo and told them to form a band. Thus Gene and Dean Ween were born. Garage Punk. Country and Western. Doo-Wop. Soul. Folk. Reggae. Eurotrash techno. 70's arena rock. Lo-Fi experimental-pyschedelic-stoner-rock. You name it. All of these genres and more is what Ween encompasses. In their early days, they recorded otherworldly lo-fi rock at that perfect moment when a musician's most prized brain cells are being disintegrated by who knows what kind of drugs. The end result is an album like "The Pod". When I first heard it, I thought it was completely boring. It was only with several listens and the passing of many months that I came to really hear the songs. I now believe "The Pod" is one of the greatest recordings man has ever committed to magnetic tape. Period. In their later years, they've gone from lo-fi drum machine four track recordings to a full arena rock ensemble. The genius of Ween is that they embrace the ridiculousness of rock. They celebrate the humor and absurdity of the arena rock genre and the fact that they embrace its absurdity, frees you to actually enjoy it and truly rock out - guilt free. I never realized what a wonderfully hilarious song "Enter Sandman" was until I heard it covered by Ween.

Be Raz's 14 Nut Kickin' Shredz

The following albums, at one point or another, kicked me in the nuts. They were all glimpses of my personal, musical nirvana; each of them jamming a steel-toed boot of genius upside my nutside. So, here's my tribute to those who made my junk ache with glee. The following are not in any order, but I will provide a caption that describes the album's method of sack attack.

This album was an evil kick in the nuts. After listening to this album, I thought I could take down a full-grown Alaskan moose with evil thoughts of evil riffs. Suck the darkness, Bullwinkle!

This album was a trippy kick in the nuts. The beginning of "Time" sounds like denting Tupperware, but it's a countdown to melodic splendor. Ooooh the colors... and we're off to see the wizard, Dorothy.


Cross Music from the Morning of the World, Elvis, Sepultura, Gregorian chant, The Beach Boys, my Uncle Dave, a rainbow trout and a chainsaw... You've got California. I appreciate this album in the same way people think Van Gogh was a genius even though we all know the freak cut his friggin' ear off. Schizophrenic kick to the nuts.

"But now I'm safe in the eye of the tornado..." But you may be saying to yourself, "Be Raz, you silly goose, tornadoes don't have eyes." F-you. If late 80's early 90's Mustaine says tornadoes have eyes, they do. If you question this album, it will eat your face. This is a spiked, acid-coated kick to the nuts.



I had to separate this form California by Rust in Peace because if I didn't, Mike Patton would be kicking Wolfmother in the nuts. I love Patton, but I love every song on this album like a lioness loves her cub. It makes me want to split someone in twain with me great axe and drink mead from a yak's horn. Here's a grand, nostalgic, power-trio kick to the nuts.

"Drag him out your window dragging out your dead singing I miss you snakes and ladders flip the lid out pops the cracker smacks you in the head, knifes you in the neck, kicks you in the teeth steel toe caps takes all your credit cards get up..." Don't forget "kicks you in the nuts."

One of the all-time great basslines on the track "Hysteria." When Muse first hit the scene, I felt like I was cheating on Radiohead. Now I have embraced muse as Radiohead's evil lil' cousin who was constantly beaten for being a redhead and forced to eat porridge in the attic only to arise with indignant rage to kick you in the nuts.

Hey na na na. Kiiiiick youuuur nuuuuuts tooooomorrow. Hey na na na. Tomooooroooohoooooow.





Suicidal, schizophrenic, massively depressed: must be a musician. Only E can create a stunningly beautiful track and name it "World of Sh!t." E and the Soul jacker deliver a sweetly mournful kick in the nuts.




Why do all of the good ones die? I guess most of the good ones just don't live long enough to suck. Mark Sandman was one of the coolest people on the planet. His voice was cool, his low-guitar was cool, his look was cool, his friggin' pocket protector was cool. Any of the Morphine albums are a sweet 'n' low kick to the nuts.

They may well be the best band you never heard of. Friggin' Fu Manchu, suckaz. These guys make songs that hurt your grandma without feeling sorry for it. "Asphalt Risin'" may be one of the ultimate headbanger tracks. These guys don't even need professional recording quality to kick you in the nuts. Instead, they just kinda riff you in the nuts.

Yup. "Waitin' for a Superman" may be my favorite song of all time. Every time I listen to that tune I get teary-eyed. You know the feeling that you
get after being hit in the nuts. You know how it builds, first in your guts, and then it slowly crescendoes in your nuts? That's this album.





I never really fancied myself a blues fan. But I have almost worn this CD through. This disc has a bit of everything to it, and all of those bits are fantastic. I want to join a triple-threat tag team with these two guys, and together we will rule the wrestling world just by being more awesome than anybody on steroids or any other performace enhancers can be, simply with riffs. Attack and release is a turnbuckle to the nuts.

LED... ZEP... PEL... BAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMM (Yo nuts).

My Top 5 Favorite Bands by Tambe

For my top five favorite bands, I'm going with all time favorites. These are not necessarily bands that I like now, or have listened to in years, but bands that were my absolute favorites for an extended period of my life. So here goes....

#5) Twisted Sister - This was my first favorite band. As a 7 year old, I thought that these guys were the toughest rebels around. "We're not gonna take it", they told their highschool principal. Badass....or so I thought. Looking back they were five guys who wrote hard rock songs in major keys and wore WAY too much mascara. My dad took me to see them live with Dokken. (it was the bomb) I had no way of knowing at the time that my future wife was regularaly babysat by Dee Snyder! True story...

#4) Bon Jovi - This is continuing with the theme of guys I thought were cool when I was a child. These guys were so cool to a 10 year old, yet seem so terribly uncool now. They did write extremely catchy, radio-friendly pop songs that sold millions and millions of albums. I'm not proud of this one, but I'd be lying if I didn't include them.

#3) The Flaming Lips - My favorite band for the last 8 years or so. The Lips are the most creative band working today. They write the music that they want, with no regard for whether it will be commercially viable, yet they are wildly popular. Their live shows are legendary, mixing humor, lasers, fake blood, animal costumes, hand puppets, etc. Their albums are as deeply layered as anything that Pink Floyd ever recorded. The world was waiting for a concept album about a small Japanese girl who defends the earth against an invaision of pink robots, and The Lips were just the band for the job.

#2) Guns N' Roses - The first truely badass band that I got into. Gn'R were essentially homeless while recording Appetite. They would sleep at whatever girl's apartment they were with that night. They drank Jack Daniels like it was water. They were the rebels that I was looking for when I was into all of the hair bands. Axl was a frontman who could be compared to Jagger, Mercury, or Plant without batting an eye, and I don't need to explain how perfect Slash was in talent, vibe, and execution. Appetite still holds up after 20 years because its 100% pure Hollywood sleaze rock n' roll.

#1) Metallica - Simply awesome. At a time when hard rock bands were wearing eyeliner and writing 3 minute pop songs, Metallica was revolutionizing Metal. They wore jeans instead of tight leather pants and cod pieces, and they barely washed their hair, much less teased it with hairspray. Inspired by British metal bands like Diamond Head, Motorhead, and any other bands with "head" in their name, Lars and James created speed metal. The unrelenting thrash of "Kill 'em All", the balls to put a ballad on "Ride the Lightening", and the most perfect metal album of all time, "Master of Puppets". Their songs were 8-10 minute epic suites of pure metal fury. Their lyrics were topical, but not cheesy. They were innovative without even trying. They got an unfair rap with the whole Napster thing, just trying to hold on to what is theirs and control what gets released. (Of course the media doesn't mention that Metallica give away more free music than any major band in the world, have you heard mention of that?) The original title for "Kill 'em All" says it all, Metal up your ass!

Proof That Eating Too Much Raw Fish May Not Be So Healthy

In an unprecedented display of political savvy, Japan recently announced that they have named "Hello Kitty" as the Tourism Ambassador for Japan. (I'm not sure what is better, the naming of a cartoon cat as a representative of their country, or this picture)

The Japanese government thinks that this will help to raise their annual tourism numbers to 10 million visitors. Think about that for a minute......

Now if Obama will just name Spongebob as his running mate.....