Videos

This was the song that permanently connected me to The Holy. Holy fucking gorgeous. "Can't Remember Your Name" is one of the most beautiful builds in modern music in my opinion, complete with shimmering guitar twinkles, evil vocal underdubs, and a THROW YOUR FISTS IN THE AIR ON A MOUNTAINTOP CLIMAX. Never before has a 5 song EP taken such a twist of my testicles.  I've already said this everywhere, but if they don't release this EP on vinyl, I'll personally pout on the internet.  The Holy, gorgeous. 

If there was ever a perfect fucking song to hear first thing Monday morning, it's "Shine". Holy fucking perfect.  Seriously, the fifth time through this song and I was a puddle. If you remember a few months ago, Mondo Cozmo made me a puddle back then with "Hold On To Me", but this is a different puddle altogether. As an adult, I am quite capable of having multiple puddles. Once you hit 36 they consider you multipuddle capable bro. Anywho, when a song reminds you of all the best parts of Bob Dylan without actually sounding like a near death Bob Dylan, you know that shit's a ringer. Completely comfortable and directly fucking related to all of my friends, but unbelievably introverted in that it sort of makes me feel like I'm listening to the song in the hopes that my...

I saw this band last night at my boy Boyd's bar, The Law Office Music Hall, in the Trill, Yorkville, IL.  Not only was I completely fucking enamored with their musicianship and chops and all around adorability, they closed their set with "Chillin' On The Beach With My Best Friend Jesus Christ", and I shat myself. To make the intimate even more intimate, Justin (lead vocals) performed the song solo, allowing the rest of us buzzed bastards to sing along.  I judge the quality (and girth) of a band by how quickly they adapt to their audience, and SUSTO was a participating member of the audience the fucking exact second their soundcheck started. I've never wanted to adopt so many white people in my life.  If you become adamant fanboys of any band today, let it be SUSTO. And I've...

That James Bond-like guitar lick got me on this track.  Dreller sounds like a younger version of Gorillaz, but with more of an "I live in a cemetary and eat things that decay" type vibe. Needless to say, but I'm fucking diggin' this shit. It's so whimsically halloweeny towards the end that it's almost like the soundtrack to a love story where the lady falls in love with a ghoul with amazing hair only to find out he's a fucking ghoul and they can't bone.  DID I JUST BRO YOUR MIND?!?! "A Signal That Comes Back" got me all Thriller dancin' by myself and I'm pretty happy about that amazing hair having ghoul idear. 

"Smiling (A Quirky Race Doc)" is a new video by rapper Open Mike Eagle and producer Paul White. And it is one of those releases that will make people call Open Mike Eagle an important rapper and be right. This song is simply about walking around, and the ensuing micro aggressions, full on aggressions, and overall lack of humanity that gets paid to a black man walking down the street.  Cross the street? Autolock the doors? Clutch the purse? Simply ignore? Ignorance. It’s an ignorance. The instance of being ignored. Choosing to ignore another person’s basic humanity because you never bothered to leave the cul de sac. And OME is such a fucking awesome person. It’s so painful to see someone you know is a really good dad and family man, who is college-educated and kind, talented, funny, and...

SYFFAL was founded on an obsession with The Chain Gang of 1974. As this dude went off from a simple dude based in Colorado dropping fucking ridiculously catchy dance tunes, to touring with The Naked and Famous, and then signing to a major label, we all waved from the sidelines and got to occasionally hug him when he passed through town on tour. Without question, TCG74 is one of my favorite discoveries as a music fiend since I started SYFFAL with Tim way black whenz. I've loved everything this dude has ever released and I SHAT when I saw a premiere today for the new track "I Still Wonder". How fucking ever this dude manages to keep the 80s/early 90s nostalgia alive in these sensually modern songs, I owe him at LEAST half of my three kids, and hope he got last year's Christmas card...

My drive to work is basically a roller coaster at Hollywood Land in Florida. Across the Elysian Valley, Downtown like a ghost mountain range in the distance, past Dodger Stadium, Sunset strip, through Beverly Hills to UCLA. It’s fun at 80 mph in the dark. It’s not at 3 mph at 5:45 am.  This video is like the fountain of youth. Wrongboy featuring Signor Benedick the Moor got me driving to work yelling out the window I am not ready for the real life! No! Let me be asleep up in the Matrix, yo!  Got me feeling like I could break shit. Got me feeling like I should be in Hollywood wandering around in parachute pants in a four day drug haze.  Recovering from a four day weekend is hard, man. Got me emotionally questioning my whole shit.  Now, off to NOT break my record speed up in a spaceship...

I’m sitting here. At this desk. At MY desk. Listening to music and tallying up the disappointment. There are the typical items found on a desk. Plus a hat (disappointingly won at an In & Out Burger promotional roulette where the clear score was a burger, animal style), a two-thirds empty bottle of Irish whiskey, a AAA tote bag filled with the disassembled pieces of my sleep apnea machine, and an old bottle of lotion. My toothbrush is on the floor I’m pretty sure and I’m in no hurry to pick it up. The warm embrace of a comfortable home for many reasons missing for me on this overcast morning home. I hadn’t been home in days. I haven’t been home in what seems like years. I’m not even sure there’s a home to have been to at all.  I feel like I’ve been on a harrowing vacation. I guess in a...

DUDE! This shit feels like Urge Overkill meets Arcade Fire in a downtown kabob shop for late night hookahs and kobobobobs, but without the bug eye glasses, that asshole accordion, and then all the black denim bros.  No One Mind reminds me that a chunky bassline can REALLY make my shorts moist, and then toss in a side of pink rope lights and I'm dropping trou like a republican running for reelection. I fucking love how the song itself is pretty straightforward, but the wooshing and the crunch happening in the periphery are just fucking MONEY BALLS, secretly reaching down the back of my shirt and flicking each individual bead of sweat from my hairy winged back.  The guitar riff that comes in towards the 1:50 mark makes "Tiger" a beefy slice of fucking hell yea and further cements...

This feels SO fucking similar to one of my favorite bands that I almost threw the computer against the wall while gasping "HOW COULD YOU!?!?!". But I didn't. Ultimate Painting sounds super balls close to Astronauts, but without that sheen of delicious and irreversible evil.  "Song For Brian Jones" feels like a slow walk in a park that's flooded up to my knee with inflatable knock off toys, like the Super Ninja Lizards, Ghostbangers, and my personal favorite, Trans Transformed Performers. I love all of the Iowa speakers and Oakie sunglasses too.