As it happened, the last time I took a road trip to Toledo, OH, I found myself at a bar called Mickey Finn’s. It’s a nice bar in one room, and in the next it’s got a stage, kinda like something you’d find at a bar in Wrigleyville where small bands can rock your Friday or Saturday nights. I liked the atmosphere (lots of punk-esque, undergrounders and hippies and other liberal music enthusiasts), and was digging on a band I knew nothing about. Turns out it was Johnnie Walker and a back-up band. The guys that played before him were pretty good, too – lots of modern blues/rock. So it was only natural for me to want to return to Finn’s this Friday when my friends picked me up from the train station. It was late, so I only got to catch the last band, a kind of Appalachian twangy folk group called the Rumpke Mountain Boys. Maybe I’m a sucker for banjos and harmonicas, but I really enjoyed kicking back and tappin’ my toes to their shit.
The next day, while we were driving back from lunch, I asked my buddy Eric who Andrew W.K. was. He immediately put in the album, “I Get Wet.” Maybe I was just out of the loop for the last years, but this metal / scene / rock is the kind of thing that would have made every frat party in college the party to be at. The lyrics are repetitive, sure, but sheer energy that pulses from their sound makes me want to see them live should they tour again. It’s a beer chuggin’ head bashin’ good time.
Finally came Sunday, and after a long conversation about The Darkness at the bar on Saturday night, Eric burned me a copy of their second album, “One Way Ticket to Hell…And Back.” I remember Kevin telling me that after “Permission to Land” came out he had seen them at Summerfest and that they played some songs not yet released, but I had never known they put out a second album, because well, I guess I just never did the research. Either way, the “One Way” is pretty good, though it’s no “Permission.” I guess in my opinion the songs are all the B-sides that would have been on “Permission” had there been enough room. Too bad Justin Hawkins had to depart. I feel like they were on to something.
So there’s my weekend music-discovering recap. Check out the Rumpke Mountain Boys and Andrew W.K., two styles of music from opposite ends of the spectrum, but both are pretty enjoyable…at least I think so.
Among many other things, I am a sucker for strip down rock ‘n’ roll, kick-drum,snare,kick-drum,snare drum beats and raw R&B/soul sounding music. Hopefully that made sense. The point is that King Kahn & BBQ Show is all of that. They are just two dudes. When they perform live, one plays guitar and sings and the other plays the high-hat, bass drum, guitar, and also sings. Their name has gotten around a lot since The Black Lips, another awesome band, sited KK&BBQS as one of their favorite bands. King Kahn recently did a video for Pitchfork interviewing a inspiration of his: The Mighty Hannibal. I found the video through a site called The Sailor Jerry Blog; if you like this kind music, check it out. After the jump, I’ll put up two of my favorite songs. (more…)
A little over a year ago, I was at an establishment known in the western suburbs as the “Cadillac Ranch.” It’s a 4 o’clock bar with the reputation of a bordello…bad people, bar fights, and easy girls. I wasn’t in the “Ranch” per se, but was in the attached steak house, “Sam Houston’s.” After looking at the main courses, I found one I had to get. I can’t remember the name of the burger, but I do remember the whole meal weighed in at a meaty 4 pounds. 2 pounds of meat was trapped between the “fixin’s” and a bun that weighed a pound on it’s own, and accompanying this dominant dish was 1 pound of crinkle-cut french fries. I guess if you ate the whole thing in under a half hour they gave it to you for free. In retrospect, that wasn’t really a great deal, considering the whole meal cost $15. I found out that the restaurant had not had to pay for anyone’s colossal burger…yet.
My friends told me to back off. One of my much larger pals had attempted the conquest no more than a week ago and succumbed – after only eating the bun. Even the waitress told me I couldn’t handle it. She scanned my 165 lb frame and said, “Son, if you’re serious, and you look like you are, I’ll get the manager out here when you finish that thing, and I’ll pay for it myself, regardless of how long it takes you.”
“Deal, bitch,” echoed in my brain.
15 minutes later, I found myself face to face with the biggest burger I had ever seen. I began to do work. I started first by scraping off the lettuce and tomatoes and onions. I wasn’t going to let some stupid vegetables stand in my way of becoming an American Hero (vegetarians read: I was saving the best for last!) (carnivorous folk read: Fuck vegetables. There was easily a head of lettuce, 2 tomatoes and an onion on that fucking thing.). I set to work carving the meat into fork-sized bites. About halfway through the meat I felt something turn over in my stomach. “Put it out of your head,” I told myself, “This is the race. Don’t slow down.” More and more ground beef found it’s way to my stomach, until at last, 2 pounds of it was packed in there. At this point I started to feel like hell.
How do you eat 1 lb of bread and 1 lb of potatoes after you’ve gorged on 2 lbs of meat? There is but one answer to that question: Courage. In the face of a challenge you cannot let yourself be daunted: I continued eating. I started with the top half of the bun. Eating bread makes you thirsty, and the last thing I wanted was to fill up on water, so I dunked every third or fourth piece in the glass of water, instead of guzzling it. After successfully finishing the top half of the bun, I went to work on the fries. I could feel myself becoming more and more tired as I forged on (this is actually medically true, as blood leaves your blood stream and goes to your stomach to help it digest food – thus leaving your brain with less blood to oxygenate it). My friends mocked me, “You can’t have desert until you eat all your vegetables.” Their comments fueled my anger, my determination, my want, but alas, they did not fuel my appetite. I went down in the 10th, knocked out by only a handful of fries and the bottom half of a huge bun. I was out. The lights blurred, my friends tried to shake me, but I was gone. Done-zo.
I cannot let myself be outdone by something that was killed with the sole purpose of me eating it. Thus, I have decided to make a comeback. “Sam Houston’s” is gone, probably a “Moretti’s” or something now, but the contenders are still out there. Now weighing a meaty 170 lbs, I’ve decided to train and get back in the ring. I’ve renamed myself “The Steel Stomach,” and have decided to take on all the famous food challenges you only hear about when someone dies:
The Cinnamon Dragon (youtube that shit). It looks painful.
1 gallon of milk in 1 hour. I’m going with Skim.
8 saltines in 2 minutes. They’re crackers.
And, made famous by Paul Newman in “Cool Hand Luke,” 50 hard-boiled eggs in one hour.
If you can think of others, throw them my way. I need to prove to people that the tasks above can be done. This is my chance.
I’m asking you, Kevin and Brian, to help me facilitate the events. I want this.
No.
I need this. I shall ne’er suffer defeat at the hands of food (while there is food in my hands) again.
I imagine the South by Southwest festival is like Lollapalooza on crack. It seems like a great chance to see a whole lot of music live and up close for a week straight. Rollo & Grady, a great music blog, has a list of the strangest names of bands that are appearing there:
1.) Star Fucking Hipsters
2.) Methadone Kitty & The Daily Dose
3.) Jesus Makes the Shotgun Sound
4.) Cheeky Cheeky and the Nosebleeds
5.) Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!
6.) This Bike is a Pipe Bomb
7.) Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers
8.) One Small Step For Landmines
9.) Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band
10.) Purple Rhinestone Eagle
I recently learned about all the updates that the new version of WordPress (the program that runs this site) has. I also changed the settings to allow ya’ll to embed videos. Chances are, if you weren’t able to put videos on the blog before, it was because of WordPress, not you. I haven’t tested it yet, but if you want to embed a video:
1. type out the text you want in the post. (I like to add video last because if I go back to retype stuff in the post, the video code changes and doesn’t work)
2. Click the html tab that is above the box where your typing.
3. Copy the Embed code that YouTube or Myspace gives.
4. Paste it into the post you are typing and and click publish.
Let me know if anybody has any problems with the new look or posting videos.
The awesome picture above is Paul Rudd from a Vanity Fair shoot of the “new class of comedians.”
