Lawy Lawson:Attorney

Guilty...

I have one, but I felt a little self-concious wearing it so I stopped. I love my trucker cap though you mother fuckers. Seriously, come near me and I will stab you in the knees!

"What are you doing, Michael?" asked KITT.

"It's Craig," I said, "NOT Michael. He gave up knight riding to become a lifeguard/private detective,"

"A PI!" choked KITT, "The fuck has that to do with lifeguard, er, ing?"

"Nothing," said I. "Damn handy if you need someone to find a brick at he bottom of a swimming pool, I guess. Anyway, to answer your original question, I've went insane."

"Why?"

"Well, a certain genre of music is getting a bit of a kicking right now. Not entirely undeservedly, as some people have exploited it badly, but there are some decent people being put into concentration camps minus their record bags and sweaters right now, and it pains me to see them suffer. I'm a liberal fella, however, and I believe in helping their tomentors, and perhaps those exploited by lazy NME journalists and yuppie record execs, to see the light."

A thoughtful silence filled the car, like some kind of philsophical fart, or 'phart', except it was only a metaphor so it didn't stink, except metaphorically, in which case it did.

"Oh..." said KITT, "how?"

"Well... I plan to draw attention to some bands I really love that get tarred with the "emo brush" in order to prove their worth. Kinda like how Nu-Metal sucked, but that "Bodies" song is still useful if you want to make a trailer for a film with Vin Diesel in it."

"Well, Micheal." said KITT, 'what albums/bands to you intend to recommend?"

"Firstly, Rites of Spring . I know Fugazi are pretty well respected around these parts, and this band includes a certain Guy Picilittolottoltolo. They're probaly worth any punk/hardcore fan's listening time at least. Certainly a big influence on the current wave of "emotional hardcore", although I think the slightly cheap 80's production may scare off those weaned on FFAF and TBS"

"Really," said KITT. "You undertsand your sudden shift in register in that last paragraph reads really badly?"

"Fuck you. My sugar, your gas tank, bucko! Next up is , Sunny Day Real Estate probably a good answer to those who think emo is musically shoddy. Nate Mendel of the Foo Fighters used to play for these guys. Kinda a shame members of argubly two of the 90's biggest rock bands are in the now adequate-but-not-as-good-as-they-should-be-Foo Fighters. Anyway, their album Diary is the emo equivalent of that "lifespring" in Final Fantasy 7. Everything begins and ends with it in my opinion. It's fragile, moving, epic, melodic and a lot more adjectives too!"

Then I fell asleep at the wheel, which was cool 'cos KITT was a robot car. Sadly, an evil robot car, crashing into a school for nuns and 8o's movie cutesy kids, forcing me to continue this epic later, and hopefully inspire some discourse.

I'm postively giddy at the concept!

Originally posted by Ben Quik:

You are a god!!!

Ive always said that Grunge doesnt exist...it totally doesnt!!

I hate it when people say "yeah they were kinda grungy"....WHAT THE FUCK??

Alice and chains and nirvana....did they sound the same....nope...both called grunge...

so say Aberdeen exploded its bands onto the world scene....black atom and driveblind would get called the same thing.....??

That's a really good analogy. I like it.

Originally posted by thesultanofswing86:

It's nothing to do with the people in them - i just think they look silly. They are actually quite funny. I generally don't like shorts. But 3/4 shorts top it off for me though.

How did emo come out of the 80s though? I thought the 80s only created shoulder pads and post-traumatic 80s stress syndrome (AKA Early 90s syndrome). I.e. MC Hammer, Milly Vanilly (that what they were called?)

Bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace, who wanted to challenge that braindead, aggressive mentality of hardcore appeared growing out of bands that were actully part of the hardcore movement.

They tried to shake things up a bit both musically and thematically.

Most of you, with maybe the exception of Ross, Bee ('cos she's my "bird" and I know she likes some varied, intresting and quality stuff) and a couple of others need to stop learning everything you know about music from Scuzz TV, because your lack of understanding and attack of a "genre" (you can't even identify properly in most cases) is laughable at best and depressing at worst.

I'll lend you a fiver if you promise to buy yourself a clue.

On a lot of American message boards, you'll find emo classed as bands ranging from Weezer to DC through to Fugazi and Death Cab for Cutie. In the UK, we seem to take it to mean H*R, FFAF, Finch. I'd say I'm an emo fan, hopefully not one of the asymetric haircut krew (who can be kinda annoying, but they'll go away like keychains and dreadlocks did), but I appreciate a lot of the bands that fall under this catagory that most of emo's detractors in this message board are to ignorant or too lazy to know about (they don't have any videos on TV, you see!) even though I don't care for bands like Taking Back Sunday.

Don't hate 'em, but I've come to realise I really don't care about 'em. What a lot of you seem to be doing is drawing conclusions from a small (and mediocre) sample size:

"Taking back Sunday or BrandNew don't have as many acne scars/lightning solos as Metallica, therefore all emo sucks'

Good 'een, guys. Next time I see a HIM video, I'll conclude all metal sucks and throw away all my Fear Factory, Therapy and Ministry CD's?

Think about it. You know, if you have the patience or mental dexterity too.

Thanks.

Originally posted by Hog:

Thats the second time you hace corrected me on this ya bastard!

I'm assume open D lets you strum a D when all the strings are open while drop-D is that Nu-Metal standard thing where you detune the bottom E, right?

Originally posted by Plato the Greek:

More correctly Lawy Lawson: 'Shakespeare' is only the modern, accepted scholarly spelling of the name. Although this appears to be the most common way of spelling the playwright's name in surviving contemporaneous documentation, the spelling of even proper names in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period was not subject to hard and fast inflexible rules as it is nowadays. Thus spellings such as 'Shakespear', 'Shakespere' and even 'Shaxspere' were used to signify the Bard in different texts and should not be discounted.

Drakes were clearly just challenging the existing scholarly canon, those crazy goddam motherfuckers.

That's actully pretty intresting. Cheers.

Christ, I need to get me down to Elizium more often.

Originally posted by betamax:

i think they are a touch over rated (like most elecro rock cross over bands)

good ...but over rated

the last album was fairly patchy and too much a replicant of early Ultrvox in places to be totally credible

imo

also heard some reports of quite bad live shows

they can only get better

I'm not gonna argue with you, even though I love it to little pieces I totally see your point. It's moody, yet you can shake ass to it. Perfect!

I'm REALLY looking forward to this gig...

but...

look, I'm an English lit. student, so forgive me, but there is an "e" on the end of "Shakespear", Dr. Drake.

(feels sheepish, prepares for beating on Friday)

From thefaint.com:

"we have begun mixing our new album, Wet From Birth. it will be released september 14th on saddle creek. we will also begin to tour the world around that time."

The Faint are 15% better than your favorite band. It's an empirical fact!

Originally posted by KarmaTsunami:

you ever see that south park episode....where Stan's grandad plays him Enya and he tries to escape...? That's how i feel when i hear her music - ''how do i get out of here???''

Heh, I was going to quote that. He played it to Stan to show him how terrible being old was.

Nice application of the "FPWDLM" phrase by Frosty Jack there. He's right about Dido too.

I'm listening to "True Faith" by New Order right now. That's a pretty ace one. Waiting Room by Fugazi, that's a winner too.

I can play the Mario "Underground Theme". And Teenage Kicks. And that's it.

It would be funny if I were joking.

Originally posted by Jimmy Jazz:

1. The Mars Volta - Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt (Flea)

2. The Smiths - Barbarism Begins At Home (Andy Rourke)

3. P.I.L - Careering (Jah Wobble)

4. The Smiths - Hand In Glove (Andy Rourke)

5. Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Give It Away (Flea)

6. Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Bob Babbit)

7. The Clash - Guns of Brixton (Paul Simonon)

8. New Order - Crystal (Peter Hook)

9. Asian Dub Foundation - La Haine (Dr Das)

10. Joy Division - Disorder (Peter Hook)

Good, but crucially missing "Rapper's Delight"

I guess they did have Sgt. Kabukiman and the Toxic Avenger in one of their videos, but...

Originally posted by Leckie Gilman:

hey what's all that madness about pac man in your signature?

I'm a big Pac-Fan, and it's a quote from the game's creator that I like. WACCAWACCAWACCABLIP!

Other Rock Bands "MIA":

Rachel Stamp

Boyhitscar

Inme always strike me as one of these "disappearing acts". I think that's just me hoping really hard though.

A Minor (or should that be add9, LOL I AM TEH MASTAR OF FUNNAY!) update.

It's happening with practise, cheers folks. Brings me back to the old days of finding Open G hard. Ah...

Originally posted by Demon_Of_The_Fall:

oh and rapping "i think youare really fit" is better

i hope they get cancer

That would hurt their feelings. Unless it was some kind of brain tumour that caused neat hallucinations, 'cos that could be kinda cool, until the whole death thing, of course, they may go to heaven. Which I guess would be kinda nice. Isd it Richard the III where someone calls someone a monster for killing their kid and he's all like "Dude, I totally did them a favour Heaven is the bomb"?

Originally posted by Mr. Tristen:

Sign me up... I have nothing better to do this summer anyway...

I have sailing experience with large sailed vessels and I'm possibly the only person I've met in this country with a large ammounnt of training in archaic weaponary including swords...

You've met yourself?

Time Travel? Cloning? What was that like?

Heh...I'm a syntax bastard. Can I be the ship's syntax bastard. There should be a band called the syntax bastards.

Any other posters there last night?

AKA the Fox:

I was excited to hear these guys 'cos I've heard good things and they really are quite fresh and intresting. I think I expected something more due to the hype, but I still thought they were really quite acomplished. Put me in mind of The Rapture at times, more in terms of energy than sound. Oh, and their Iggy Pop cover sounded like Ministry, which is NEVER bad. Hope to catch 'em again

Wezzizer:

Not really their name. Gilias or Silias or something. I think they just seemed a little out of context at this gig. The geeky hip-hop angle was just annoying and everything else sounded a bit like sub-weezer alt-rock, although not quite as wearying as Trucks or Wheatus. I didn't hate them as much as some people seemed too, but they were cringe inducing in places. Sorry.

(Learned the name was "Grisli". Cheers to Dave in One Up for that.)

Dogs Die in Hot Cars:

Yeah. Good. I'll definitley check out their album. The XTC comparisons are pretty accurate, although they randomly reminded me of Duran Duran at times, which isn't a bad thing. Anyone else still got Godhopping lodged in their brain?

7/10

Yeah I like 'em.

I think "Man or Machine" by Goldy Looking Chain pisses over everything they've done, but that's because it's a song about a robot.

Originally posted by Hog:

This works for me, although Im not known to be technically correct. The Black Atom gentlemen are probably best to talk to regarding this, however I can tell you how it works for me. Put your pinky in one position and do stretch chords i.e power chords but using the index finger even further down (great in open D). Fuck, its easier if I show u! em, if your ever at a Spike Pile Driver or Element 106 gig, say hi and I can show u! Cant promise its the right way though:up:

PS practice like a bastard...thats the best thing too do!

Will do, I'm curious to see the Piledriver. Cheers.