Made Loud — Indie Underground Bands, Music, Downloads, Community

I don't know how anyone who works in retail is still alive right now. Starting right around November 1, everywhere from Wal-Mart to CVS to every single solitary department store in the country in blaring a titanic unmitigated Christmas Crapstravaganza in an attempt to solicit people to... I really don't know what. Plunge headlong into drug addiction, perhaps. It baffles me to this day why the daily obituaries aren't a minimum of eight inches thick per day of the ramrodded Christmas "season." As I venture into a list of the worst tinsel-laden refuse, pull up a chair, pour yourself a stiff drink and maybe even load up the .357 with some nice, monitor-killing hollow-points... we can't, after all, put a price tag on catharsis.

It's sort of funny how much old dead white guys influence history. I mean you've got your George Washington and your Caligula and all, but when it comes to music Frederic Chopin definitely left his mark.

You may have heard, but we had an election recently. I think it was a Tuesday... oh well. For those of you still holed up in a bunker stocked to the rafters with canned tuna and spare magazines for your Uzi in preparation for the inevitable "My Party Mascot of Choice Lost" apocalypse, you've still got until Inauguration Day so lighten up a little and read my blog while you recheck the seals on your gas mask.

I'm very sincerely NOT ripping on any political party here (although I certainly have my opinions and they may not agree with your own), rather I am not-so-deftly using the election of our 44th President to discuss the band that gets to play for him and represent him musically.

If you have poor hygiene, limited social skills or both, you can always make your own band. For all two of you that have read my previous blog on The One Man Band, it's not the same thing; I'm not talking about tying bicycle horns to every conceivable (and inappropriate) location of your body to accentuate the entire trap set you're carrying around on your back in the hopes that your frantic lurching around will make something musical enough that passersby will throw change at you thus offsetting the ruinous chiropractic bills you'll inevitably incur.

There is some debate in music circles about who exactly has the largest Organ in the world. The largest Pipe Organ, that is. It is regrettable that I'm approaching this blog without my trademark Compendium of Phallic Jokes, References and Innuendos, but somehow or another we'll get by.

Every so often - and I live for these moments, believe me - you hear something totally unlike anything you've heard before. It just hits you differently; it means something more than "I lost my girlfriend, my dog died, I drive an Escalade, et cetera." It goes past the standard and the stereotypical. It's more than just what's on the radio while you're stuck in the car for an hour and a half trying to get from point A to point B. You get the picture.

Accordions are probably the second least appreciated instrument of all time (just slightly ahead of the bagpipes and directly behind the infamous Dead Kitten Flute). Despite accordions kicking around for no less than 186 years, science has yet to find a single soul surprised that the Accordion was invented by the Germans. Clowns, and, uh... clowns...

I'm absolutely shocked I can't find a nickname for the Banjo. Even the freakin' accordion has a nickname (Squeeze Box), and it's at least 20 times an annoying as the Banjo assuming you don't like banjos in the first place (in which case, enjoy living north of the Mason-Dixon). Virtually all of you are familiar with the oh-so-classic banjo scene from Deliverance that really unnecessarily links banjos with non consensual sodomy, but what about the softer, rape-free side?

The most important books I've ever read, Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, will never make Oprah's super duper whoopty-doo list. Frankly I think that's points in their favor, but unfortunately countless brains will be eaten due to general lack of essential Zombie survival knowledge (believe it or not, a shotgun is NOT your best friend). One subject Mr.Brooks does not touch upon is the appropriate music with which to kill zombies by.

It's really no secret at all that I really don't care for Fred Durst as well as whichever city or municipality he resides in at a given point in time. That doesn't mean I don't want to understand why he is what he is, which isn't actually all that terribly complicated, but it does mean I wouldn't mind if somehow he found himself atop Eastern Express at just the right moment (May 27, 1995).