May 2011 – why i hate everything

3 Young Bands to Get Into

Everyone’s heard of these bands – they aren’t brand new or unknown or the music scene’s best kept secrets. What they are is solid, full of talent, and plenty able to continue giving us good music for a while. If you’ve only had a passing familiarity of these groups so far you should catch up – it’s time to get into these guys.

Silversun Pickups
What can I say about Silversun that can really capture my excitement about having them around? They are a new indie band on a field chock-full of old dogs but ironically feel like the blast from the past that we’ve been missing lately. And they stepped into the ring so confidently and quickly as if they had always been here. Not an instant success because they started with an EP (Pikul) that wasn’t too strongly received (and probably came from lesser means), the Silversun Pickups still managed to grab hold of an individual style while everyone else was too busy trying to sound like the Killers or Phoenix. The band gets their name from the corner of Silverlake Blvd and Sunset Drive- there is a Silversun liquor store that the band would often go to on pickups of booze while they were practicing. Their cool attitude and genuine love of music make them a joy to be a fan of and when Carnavas, their first full length album, came out it was no surprise that it had a few big hits on it. If the music wasn’t exactly up your alley then an argument could be made that watching them live could still win you over. They have an energy when they play that keeps the crowd involved. And these guys still play smaller LA shows every once in a while to show the love to their hometown. Following up all the praise was their 3rd album Swoon and, while perhaps not as good as the prior for some, it continues the tradition of distorted guitar and some really good songs. I’d say the album perhaps puts too much of an emphasis on distortion in the mix rather than, say, the clarity of the vocals, but it is still a very strong showing. I would only expect their future albums to get stronger.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Fresh, Brash, and Attitude – all coming out of New York. With that recipe the Yeah Yeah Yeahs almost seemed destined for success. The self titled EP was in your face and Fever To Tell had mostly fast songs next to the single Maps. It was clear at the time that the vocalist Karen O had style and that they were the flavor of the month but some of the songs admittedly sounded like high school rock. In a way, that was their charm, but there was more potential ahead. Show Your Bones was a bit softer and polished and it had many people worried, although I thought most of the songs were solid if not a bit more tame. Drawing personal comparisons to Siouxie and the Banshees isn’t a bad thing in my mind. So how do you prove to the naysayers that you didn’t sell out? Release Is Is, an EP that is gritty and does its best to rub convention the wrong way. Follow that up with It’s Blitz! and you now have a dancy and at times folksy collection, and you realize it is really hard to typecast the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It’s not that their style always changes or that they have no identity, rather it’s a testament to their range as musicians.

She Wants Revenge
Filling a void in the market, She Wants Revenge is like a modern industrial act. While certainly influenced by 80s synth, the music doesn’t have the derivative industrial sound. This is something new and bold and unforgettable. There is no middle ground – you will either love it or hate it. Then to everyone who thought their first self titled album was a fluke or a gimmick, out came the sophmore effort, This Is Forever. The musicians base a lot of their work on old movie soundtracks from the 80s, if that sounds odd, and I definitely feel like I am listening to a Michael Mann movie at times. I would go as far as to say that the second album is better than the first, and has more of a driving, constant force behind it. They followed it up with an amazing Save Your Soul EP, and at this point the band seems unstoppable. Maybe that is a bit risky to say since a new album is hitting store shelves as we speak and my initial impressions are that there is a small style change in the vocals. How far could they really get without increasing the range of Justin Warfield’s singing, anyway? It’s a risk, but then all the great bands take them.

The End Times

Today is the end of the world.

That sounds like a good first line of a novel, but unfortunately there are those out there who don’t see this idea as fiction. Harold Camping is a batty old man who runs the Family Radio network and he is convinced that today, May 21st 2011, is the day of the Rapture. “Recent events, such as earthquakes in Japan, New Zealand and Haiti, are harbingers of impending doom” he says, and he is spreading that word across his worldwide radio network and very likely messing up a lot of people’s lives.

So what is the deal with Apocalypse predictions anyway?

One of the most common responses you will hear to this question, as Harold states above, is that it is clear that the end times are nigh because of all the death and tragedy that is happening around the world today. The clear and obvious counter to this fallacy is that bad shit has been going down for thousands and thousands of years. Was the Japanese tsunami proof that the world is ending? What about 9/11? Hmm, what about little events you may have heard of called WW1 and WW2? How about the fall of the Roman Empire? Or, say, what about the planetary disaster that wiped out the fucking dinosaurs? There have been many tragedies in history and the only difference between now and then is that we happen to be alive now. This line of thinking is extremely self centered, as if nothing that happened before we were alive is important.

But man do some people take stock in it. And when people believe in something, there’s money to be made. The internet has spawned hilarious real world companies that service the end times.

Youvebeenleftbehind.com is a “Rapture Notification System”. Several good Christians spread around the world collect email messages from people who plan on ascending to Heaven but have loved ones who will inevitably be ‘left behind.’ When a majority of the Christians fail to log in to the servers 3 days in a row, they will assume the Rapture occurred and a mass emailing will go out. I wonder what their website says about today’s prediction?

777 Error: Rapture Not Found!

Oops. Well if this website can’t handle a FAKE rapture, what makes them think they can handle a REAL one?

Then there’s the budding industry of “Post-Rapture Pet Care”. Are you worried about your dog being fed after you go to Heaven? Well, just your luck, there is a network of pet-loving Atheists who will take your yearly insurance premium and make sure to care for your pet in the eventuality of an Apocalypse.

And apparently there is a non-significant amount of religious people spending money on these services.

But let’s get this out of the way. This isn’t about religion versus science. I’ve long advocated that the two are not polar opposites. I myself am Catholic but you don’t find me immersing myself in propaganda and scare tactics. Does that mean that I believe one day there will be an Apocalypse and the world will end? Let me put it this way.

It is a scientific fact that the Earth will one day be dead. I will go one step futher and say, whether or not humans populate other planets, that it is a scientific fact that we will one day be extinct from this universe. Everything dies. Nothing lasts forever. It is the one single thing I can guarantee. Call it the WIHE Imperative : All humans will one day be dead. And whether you are a crazed nutjob or a cynical man of pure science, this is one topic where a consensus can be reached.

The crux, of course, is the little matter of *when*. But to that I say, who cares? Every single one of us can have our own private Apocalpse at any moment and unexpectedly die, and worrying about it is not going to do us a whole lot of good. Furthermore, and make no mistake about it, it is outright arrogant to predict the Apocalypse and expect anyone to listen.

Which leads us back to Mr. Camping, the man who started this latest freak out.

How does anybody seriously follow this man? I am sorry, but if you predict the end of the world in the absence of overwhelming evidence, you are crazy. And not just a bit crazy, but balls-out batshit crazy. As to how people like this ever get followers, well, as evidenced by the fact that Celine Dion fans will go to their graves believing that she is the greatest person to ever live, crazy sticks to crazy.

“The 2012ers are weird”- I’m with him so far- “The world will end sooner than that.” Ok, he lost me. Where does he get off dismissing someone else’s unfounded pseudo-science for his own? Why is his proof so much more compelling?

Let’s see. He believes the date of the Crucifixion to be April 1, 0033 (<-- Y2k compliant). Today is 722,500 days after that date. What was his mathematic formula garnered from 70 years of studying the bible that gave him that figure? He multiplied the 3 holy numbers (5, 10, and 17) together, twice.

(Technically a Theorem)

WTF? Where did the 2 come from? 3, if anything, being the number of the Holy Trinity, makes more sense. So why doesn’t Mr. Camping believe that we maybe have another 722 thousand days to live? Because that date doesn’t happen in his lifetime.

The hilarious thing is, he’s done this before. He’s literally predicted the Rapture with a mathematical formula before and (wait for it) was wrong. On September 6, 1994, when nothing happened, he said his math must have been off.

What do you think he’s going to say tomorrow?

So there you go. I’ll see you all tomorrow, whether you believe it or not. I will probably have a hangover at the time, though. If there’s one thing end times predictions are good for, it’s a reason to go out drinking.

(As if I needed one).

Charity Stand

Stand to Walk!

Ok, this is an old one. I just think ‘Stand for Hope!’ is an *awful* name for a Charity Walk/ Run. I would perhaps have a different opinion if this were a Charity Stand.