Album review: Chris Evil and the Taints Wanna Kill Kill Kill

Performer Magazine strikes again, feeling fit to publish some of my writing for some reason.

Check out my review of Chris Evil and the Taints Wanna Kill Kill Kill.

The Get Out Clause stars in front of CCTV

The Telegraph is finally reporting that the Manchester, UK band The Get Out Clause couldn’t afford to put together a music video, but it didn’t stop them.

No director, cameras, lighting, make-up or production? No problem.

These rockers decided to record themselves for free on local CCTV cameras. Then, in a stroke of brilliance, requested the video from operators using the Freedom of Information act. They weaved it all together and, ta-da, they had a music video.

I remember seeing this video a while back and thinking it was a really cool gimmick. I never got the full story of how the band brought this all together, but it does add something to the video. Say what you will about the music or the lead singers mustache, the video they created is pretty cool.

Check it out:

All Points West Update: Full sets from Radiohead, other headliners

I surfed over to the All Points West site this morning to send the link to a friend when I noticed they posted a fresh news announcement yesterday:

“The only metropolitan NY-NJ area appearances for Radiohead and Jack Johnson this year are at All Points West, with each act playing a full 2 hour set!

Radiohead is headlining the festival on both Friday, August 8th & Saturday, August 9th, and will have unique performances each night, much like their past two-night shows over the years in NYC.”

The announcement goes on to note that APW is Underworld’s first announced American performance in the US.

Take the Jack Johnson news however you want. Two hours of Johnson’s brand of surf music is at least one hour, 56 minutes and 30 seconds too long for me.   Four hours of Radiohead over two days is another story altogether. I’ll be bailing early Sunday morning to head back to Boston in order to catch the lads from Oxfordshire again Wednesday the 13th.

Three times in one week

August 8th and 9th. Then again the following Wednesday, the 13th.

Reporters Gone Wild, Meow Style

This is the story of three editors and a vendor. See what happens when writers stop being sober and start being: drunk.

Mark, Jay, Matt and I got an invite from Marilyn Monroe on the Las Vegas Convention Center floor to attend an open bar at the Hooters Hotel and Casino. This screamed class to me. Of course we were going. Marilyn Monroe + Hooters girls + Open bar = Mandatory attendance.

The liquor was provided by a company called ShowRack which Matt kept calling ‘the RackShow.’ Classy AND appropriate.  I started the evening off by ordering a Bud Light then changed my mind to a Jack and Coke. I got both anyway. I’d been at the party 45 seconds and I was already double fisting. Yup. That’s just the way we roll.

Three shots of whiskey and three glasses of Jack and coke later — I was chasing shots of Jim Beam with Jack and coke, which is always wise — the open bar closed an hour early. Daunted, but determined, the four of us wandered downstairs to the Hooters bar to keep imbibing what I like to call ‘adult soda pops.’ Which we did. For a long time.

Eventually, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ start blaring over the PA. We’d been loudly drunk for a while now, but hadn’t reached abnoxious quite yet. That all changed with one word: Meow. Jay, a non-journalist, but all around great guy had been kind of quiet while we were at the bar. I thought he was just hammered, but I now realize he was simply biding his time. Waiting for the right moment to make his move.

“I see a little silloutte-o of a man/meow meow MEOW/meow meow MEOW/Can you do the fandango?”

You know that surprised look that you sometimes get on your face when someone drops some knowledge on you after drinking for a while? He got it from the three of us in spades. And thus began the long and magnificent decline that lead to the videos you see here.

We must have sat at the bar and meowed for a solid two and a half hours. We drove patrons away. Bartenders tried to ignore us. Hookers looked for easier pray. And still, we meowed. No song was untouchable. Eddie Money? Journey?Alice in Chains? Barry Manillow? Meow.

Finally, Tom Petty slithered down from the speakers to where we sat at the elbow of the bar. I remembered my phone and its video capabilities. I started filming.  I don’t fancy myself much of a documentarian, but had I actually been doing a study of the affect of the word ‘Meow’ on drunk reporters in concert with music that is easily parroted, I’d be booking a flight to Cannes. As it is, cell phone video. 15 second clips. I hope you enjoy.