Video Viscera: Vivid Meltdown.

Video Viscera is Emerald Miasma's weekly music video spotlight. Anything goes. Let's get freak nasty all up in them corners, Boo.

Captain Ahab - 'I Don't Have a Dick'.-

-

When I first heard this song on the Free Music Archive, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I knew that the song was called 'I Don't Have a Dick', and that's about it. I certainly didn't expect an epic 7+ minute brag track about an omnipotent ubermench that JUST HAPPENS to not have a dick. Turns out that Captain Ahab was an electropop (or 'Ravespolitation' in their words) band from LA who have sadly since broken up, but they did give the world this song, so that's great. The song is rife with choice lines like, 'I can fuck 100 people at once, 'cause I can make you cum with my eyes'. This is one of the funniest songs I've heard in a while AAAAND the beats don't suck. Dope.

Xeno and Oaklander - 'Sheen'.
- 

-
Xeno and Oaklander are a minimal-wave/coldwave duo from Brooklyn that have been coasting under the radar for a lot of people for a few years now. Despite the band's airy ambient washes and Liz Wendelbo's distant, ethereal voice, these synths can hit pretty hard. I first became aware of these two from their album 'Sentinelle' back in 2009. I didn't expect much crossover appeal going forward for the group, mostly because America hates music with a distinct air of disconnect and a little pretention. But their star is slowly rising in spite of itself, which is a good thing I think. I'd assume this has something to do with the indie set's late-to-the-party adoration of Zola Jesus, but regardless. This is the perfect song to die of hypothermia in a Paris alley to.
 

Stellar Om Source - 'Polarity'.

-

-
Another electronic musician I never expected much commercial success from, Stellar OM Source is pretty well known amongst the cassette culture uber-hip set. SOS is the ambient/electro moniker of Christelle Gauldi, which is easily the most supermodel name I have ever heard. She had been up to this point just your average blog name-drop fodder that was markedly better than the countless other CD-R/Cassette mavens of he late 2000's (and there were hundreds of them, I can assure you). Then seemingly out of nowhere, she takes a fancy to dark, heavy house music, drops her ambient drone washes, and releases 'Joy One Mile', which is just a stunning record. It's a shocking turn, but one I feel fits nicely. It proves her versatility as an artist, and I look forward to having her around for years to come. Plus, who doesn't love dour models sinking into a blackened pool over and over again?
 

Screaming Females - 'It All Means Nothing'.
-

-

Jangly. Ragged. Vicious. This is what I miss most about indie rock slowly unraveling at its precious seams that slowly devolved to create the unholy chimera that is Foster the People. Straight outta Brunswick, NJ, Screaming Females really broke onto the scene with this song, in no small part to the graphic video. Seriously, this video even makes ME uncomfortable at times, and that takes a lot anymore. There's just a lot of really gross stuff in this. It actually kind of reminds me of scummy late 80's/early 90's East Coast gorefest movies like 'Slime City' or 'Street Trash' in some ways. Highly Recommended.

Diamond D and the Psychotic Neurotics - 'Sally Got a One Track Mind'.
-

-

The best rap album you've (likely) never heard. Bronx MC and member of the legendary Diggin' in the Crates Crew, Diamond D found the absolute perfect medium between hard gangster rap, underground hip-hop, and soulful introspection on his seminal 1992 album 'Stunts, Blunts & Hip-Hop'. Spanning 23 tracks and featuring some of NYC's most brilliant rappers, the album was quite an undertaking, and it pays off in a huge way. 'Sally Got a One Track Mind' is just one example of how interesting and forward thinking this album can be. Even in the most indie of rap circles, women were often marginalized or objectified. But 'Sally' is a sort of cautionary tale about the aftermath of a lot of that objectification, as well as an indictment on several of rap's more materialistic tendencies. It's rare even today for rappers to take a step back and assess the other side of the coin as it were, and 'Sally' is one of the best songs to discuss the issue.

Devo - 'Fresh'.
-

-

I really like Devo. Like, a lot. These guys need no introduction, they're fucking Devo and Devo is awesome. This song is from their latest album 'Something For Everybody', which I think is a pretty goddamn excellent comeback record. They're assessment of popular culture remains sharp and biting, and their ability to make a fucking killer video is as strong as ever. Seriously, crying asses? YES. CRYING ASSES. Also, that blueberry guitar is the best. Praise be the kings of Weird Ohio.

Super Furry Animals - 'Rings Around the World'.

-

-
Probably the most consistently excellent band of my generation, the Welsh band Super Furry Animals has one of the most envious track records a band could have. SFA blows Radiohead's track record out of the goddamn water by a fucking country mile. Yet everyone continues to bust load after load every time Thom Yorke nonsensically strings together IN A SPOOKY WAY, and SFA are an afterthought to most people. They have the skill to drop 'Tetsuo II: Body Hammer' references into the sunniest goddamn indictment on technological waste you've ever fucking heard. Thom Yorke warbles vague thoughts about ice ages and listens to a fucking Fennesz album and every indie slag thinks he invented the fucking synthesizer. NO CONTEST. (At this point, I should point out I like Radiohead well enough, but their lyrics are nonsense and 'Kid A' is the most overrated album of all-time). But this isn't about my irrational backlash sniping of a band I like. This about PRAISING a band I LOVE. SFA! ALL THE WAY!

TWIY: All Sorts of Salty.

The Week in Yeah is Emerald Miasma's weekly round-up of the good, the bad, and the incomprehensible of pop culture, the world at large, and life in general, as seen by me.

So, I decided to go back on what I said several weeks ago and caught up on 'Breaking Bad' to watch the season finale live. I was pleasantly surprised that the show wasn't a complete fucking waste of time, which I assumed it would considering the show's atrocious track record in season finales. For a series so obsessed with grit and realism, there's a lot of goofy shit in those first three seasons. But the last two seasons excised almost all of the Magnolia-esque circumstantial nonsense and started being creepy and violent.

*STOP READING NOW IF YOU WANT YOUR 'BREAKING BAD' UNSPOILED*
.
Ok, so it's just us now. First of all, Hank being shot leading up to the finale was a goddamn gutshot. Hank was at the brink of completing his Campbellian heroes journey when BAM! Nazis, It's always Nazis. I have taken to rooting for the good guys to win out lately, and seeing Hank overcome his demons, get out of the bed, and stick it to CRIME was inspiring. Then... nothing. It was brutal. The show has been theorized at length by smart people than myself, so I'll spare you the story analysis. I just have a few stray thoughts otherwise. First and foremost, WHAT HAPPENED TO HUELL? Good, now that that's out of the way, I thought the episode was pretty straight-forward. It wasn't Earth-shatteringly crazy, but that's fine. It didn't try and get cute at the end, which way too many shows these days are really angling for (more on than later). The audience got most of what it wanted, and it'says a lot in this day and age for a show to be in tune with it's audience like that. That said, this still isn't the best show ever, as everyone claims. It's a solid show. It still isn't 'The Sopranos'. But, whatever, it's still an excellent show. Also, BADFINGER. Wow, that was really the revelation of the finale. Master internetsman Jack Kogod said on Twitter that he didn't know if it took Vince Gilligan five years or five seconds to think of that song, and I cannot agree more. I figured it would follow the through line of Marty Robbins' 'El Paso' (especially the 'Burning pain in my side' line for obvious reasons), but nope. BADFINGER. So dope.

-

-
I watched 'Talking Bad' after the show ended, and I have to say that the 'Talking Bad' finale was my last straw with Chris Hardwick. What happened to him? I remember thinking his Hard 'n Phirm comedy band was fun and that The Nerdist podcast was quite listenable. Not anymore. He's like the 'NERRRRRRRRD' Ryan Secrest. His non-subjectivity and glossy veneer have reached critical mass at this point. He's always been careful of not offending whatever wretched 'NERRRRRRRRD' icon he has on his hundred or so media outlets, but it's becoming insane at this point. YOU HAVE TO HAVE AN OPINION ON SOMETHING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. He wears that title 'Nerdist' like a goddamn gold medal, lest we forget for one goddamn second that he's some manner of societal outcast for liking science and the atrocious comedy of 'The Big Bang Theory'. Star Wars is one of the most profitable franchises in cinematic history, and you are still trying to sell me on the idea that this gives you some kind of nerd cred? I'm more than over this faux-nerd bullshit I see everyday. Watching 'Star Trek' and playing 'Halo' doesn't make you a fucking nerd. It makes you Steve. Hi, Steve. You're not a special snowflake of intellectual superiority because you say 'BAZINGA!' to your idiot friends. And listening to Kaley Cuoco talk is like listening to the last hours of Jonestown as interpreted by John Balance.
-

-
Unlike 'Breaking Bad', 'Dexter' had become exponentially worse as time went on. While 'Breaking Bad' kept distancing itself from magical realism, 'Dexter' flew head first into a hurricane (literally) of incredulity stretching. Countless serial killers outwitting increasingly more idiotic police work was the motif of the later half of Dexter's run. Like clockwork, a season long guest serial killer would threaten to expose Dexter, until Dexter eventually killed them before his secret could get out. The cops are none the wiser, Masuka says something inappropriate, Deb swears, Dexter's stupid family life gets more and more pointless, repeat 6 times and you have it. Long story short, I wasn't expecting much from the series finale of' Dexter'. BUT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. The series finale of 'Dexter' was probably the worst hour of TV I have ever seen. I've seen episodes of 'Victorious' with more integrity. STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS DUMB SHOW SPOILED. Are all of you still here? Thought so. He dumps his stupid kid off with some random lady serial killer in Argentina, mercy kills Deb after she gets critically injured, drives his murder boat into the eye of Hurricane Nancy (!!!), SURVIVES, and goes to work as a logger for the rest of his dumb life. Fuck you. This is what you were building up to? FUCK YOU. If you haven't finished 'Dexter', don't. If you haven't started it, don't. This invalidates one very good season of TV and 6 not good ones. This isn't one of those 'It's the Journey, Not the Destination' shows where the ending doesn't matter. The ending was always the only thing that mattered with 'Dexter'. Does his childhood training warrant 50+ episodes of explanation? No. Do any of the characters matter? No. Deb is an enabling wretch, Angel is genial and hapless, LaGuerta is incompetent, Masuka is average comic relief, Harry is totally unnecessary, and that other dude cop is so forgettable and meaningless that I can't be bothered to look up his character name. AND JULIE BENZ WAS A WALKING VOID. These peripheral characters only matter because Dexter is supposed to matter. So, when Dexter doesn't matter, NONE OF THESE PEOPLE MATTER. Nothing mattered in the grand scheme of things. Dexter got to do what he wanted and HE GOT AWAY WITH ALL OF IT. There was no karmic, moral, or logical retribution. You just watched 7 seasons of a dude murder dozens of people and then go on to the set of 'Ax Men' to live the quiet life he always wanted. Fuck Dexter. Fuck the 'Dark Passenger' bullshit. And seriously, Fuck Showtime. That network is a dumpster fire of unwatchable nonsense and aborted good ideas. This is the network that let 'Weeds' run for 8 fucking years. That alone should have told me that this was going to be an atrocious finale. Showtime, YOU ARE ON NOTICE.
-

-
I finally bit the bullet and got a Netflix account. So far I'm having issues with it. It really doesn't have much I'm super interested in. There's some Bava movies and 30 for 30 episodes I haven't seen, but on the whole it's lacking in a lot of key areas for me. I wanted some kung-fu or Asian Cat 3 movies or a passable horror selection. It has none of those things. Too few westerns and 80's action movies, as well. There are some good TV shows on there, but that's really the only selling point for me right now. I'm trying my damnedest to get the metrics to my standards too, but I'm quickly realizing that this is a fruitless effort. As long as 'Derek' is on my top recommendations list, I cannot trust a single suggestion from this particular movie robot.
-
Netflix did have 'The Stuff' on Watch Instant, so I can't complain too much. Mostly because 'The Stuff' is batshit insane. The movie opens on an old miner finding a bubbling white mass of goo outside a snowy mining outpost. For a normal person, this is something you get away from. But since this dude is miner-crazy, he starts eating it. AND HE LIKES IT. This is in the first 45 seconds of the film, I should point out. They're not even a minute in and we've jumped to this. I AM IN. The miner decides to market the goo as 'The Stuff' and soon people everywhere cannot stop eating it. His riles the feathers of a cabal of ice cream manufacturers (!!!) and so they hire Moe Rutherford aka Southern Michael Moriarty to so some corporate espionage. He discovers a lot of mysterious deaths and disappearances around the rise of The Stuff. Along the way, he teams up with The Stuff's former marketing director, a scared kid that fled his Stuff-addled family, a militia general played by Paul Sorvino, and Garrett Fucking Morris to uncover the truth about the cryptic confection. This movie has a lot going for it. Weird gory stuff, nonsensical advertisements, and the advent of MICHAEL MORIARTY: ACTION STAR. Worth a watch.
-

-
BROWNS NEWS! Cleveland is 3-2! Hooray! They're in first place in the AFC North! But, Brian Hoyer tore his ACL! FUUUUUUUCK. That means Brandon Weeden returns to stand in the goddamn pocket for an hour every snap and get hammered by Mario Williams. Playing for next year is now sadly a much more likely scenario.
-

-
MUSIC! The Raspberry Bulbs' new album, 'Deformed Worship', is pretty great. It's a dirty, lo-fi punk metal album that's about half Rocket From the Crypt, half Clockcleaner, and all vicious. Plus, any aggro music outfit that calls themselves 'Raspberry Bulbs' and has a mauve colored album cover is something I can get behind. Owiny Sigoma Band's 'Power Punch' is usually something I can't go in on. There's a vague sense of cultural reappropriation to the band that I can't stand *cough VAMPIRE WEEKEND cough*. But instead of mashing African polyrhythms with teeth-gnashingly precious indie pop, Owiny Sigoma does it with dark, ghostly hollow Burial-esque electronics, which apparently allows me to overlook the authenticity gray area I usually balk at. But, good is good. Aesop Rock was an English major at Boston University, but he's still great at what he does. Greatness levels the playing field pretty damn quick in my opinion. I was the last person to hear the new Major Lazer album, so I don't have much new to contribute to the conversation. I will say their first album was critically underrated, and this one is slightly overrated. It's still good, but there's too much filler and I personally don't care for 'Get Free', which is supposedly this great thing I don't get. But, whatever. Lazers never die, Bumaye, etc.

The Suck Foundation: Oi to the World!

The Suck Foundation is Emerald Miasma's journey through the insufferable, forgettable and bland music of Blitz's youth (namely 1997-2003). Ranked from still moderately listenable (Five Stars) to absolute trash (Zero Stars), these songs make you realize that sometimes a trip down Memory Lane isn't a pleasant one. Enjoy.

-

I was a pretty aggro teenager. Despite my admitted obsession with sappy K-Ci and Jo-Jo-esque nonsense, I was super pissed about everything for no particular reason. I guess that's what being a teenage boy is all about: directionless aggression. Sure, I was a suburban kid with no real issues that crushed mad puss all the time (MOST OF THAT LAST SENTENCE IS TRUE AND DO NOT QUESTION IT), but the roiling mixture of hormones and adrenaline combined with the undignified pushing and prodding from all directions that comes part and parcel with being a teenager drove me to be part Johnny Knoxville and part fat kid from Varsity Blues. This is why I gravitated towards football and the watered-down, whiny ghost of 90's punk. While they seem diametrically opposed on at first glance, football and kid stuff punk were obvious outlets for my aggression in hindsight. Football was a basic, primal release. I wanted to hit stuff, and now I could hit as hard as possible in a controlled setting. Perfect. Whiny 90's punk worked on a mental level. 90's punk rock was just angry and generic enough to not scare me, but aggressive enough to effect my lizard brain into a 'Fuck Yeah' type response. I would obviously learn later that there was nothing aggressive about that music in the grand scheme of things, but it was a good enough placebo at the time to keep me from backyard wrestling or shadow boxing 8 hours a day. Long story short; it kept me from being a bigger twat than what I was.

 

Goldfinger - 'Mabel'. From the 1996 album 'Goldfinger'.
-

-
Everyone has a first concert, unless you're weird and don't listen to music (which I still hear from people and it still blows my goddamn mind every time I hear it). Some people go to massive $200 arena shows, some go to dirt bag free shows at some youth center, and some still go to a House of Blues show to see a past-their-prime Goldfinger after getting free tickets from their friend Josh. I would be in that third camp.

I first became aware of Goldfinger the way most kids my age did: Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I got a PS1 sampler disc with a large pizza from Pizza Hut that included the first level of Tony Hawk. That demo only had one song, and that was 'Superman'. I must have heard the first 20 seconds of that song 1,000 times after hitting the reset button due to my bad heel flipping skills. This led to me Napstering the fuck out of every Goldfinger song I could find at the time. I was hooked hard, and 'Mabel' quickly became a favorite. It's your typical girl trouble, overly-goofy ska-pop-punk song of the era. If you've heard one you've pretty much heard them all, but that's being a teenage boy in the late 90's for you.

I was incredibly nervous about going to the show. These were PUNK KIDS. They're intense, angry people that would judge me for my lack of TRUE PUNK IDEALS. I was so afraid of what this group of strangers would think about me, that I hid my emergency family cell phone, lest they break it and start lecturing me about Kierkegaard. Obviously, that never happened. I didn't realize that the concert was full of kids like me that proudly pulled out their cell phones during the show. The concert was fine as first concerts go. Lots of fun, safe punk-ish activities: Oi-ing, the band shouting at the people sitting in the balcony, a drunk girl that looked like a low-rent version of Ari Up from The Slits hitting me in the face with her awful dreadlocks. They even did a circle pit, which was nerve racking as I attended with my friend who had cerebral palsy, and he got immediately swept up in it in a violent manner. Thankfully, he was fine and loved the chaos that was ensuing around us. And so did I. It was a really fun show. I'm past my Goldfinger phase in my life, but I still have fond memories of the band to this day. You could certainly do worse for a worse first concert.

BLITZ GIVES THIS VIDEO THREE FAT SUITS OUT OF FIVE.
-
SR-71 - 'Right Now'. From the 2000 album 'Now You See Inside'.
-

-
This is one of the most painful examples of how bad pop-ska-punk can really be. These guys are the end result of years of syphoning any and all edge, integrity, and meaning out of the desiccated corpse of punk rock. Their lead singer, Mitch Allan, has the chiseled features and toned physique of a Calvin Klein model, not one of an angsty dude that has it out for the world at large. The band is just a thin veneer of gloss over a big pit of vacuous, generic commercialism.

That all being said, I definitely owned this album, and listened to it quite often. It's like DC Pierson said, they replaced the political anger of punk with relationship anger. Thatcher doesn't suck anymore, Stephanie sucks, and that's a feeling I could get behind. Once again, this furthers my proof that 13 year old boys are the fucking worst.

For their part, SR-71 released two more albums, with one only being released in Japan before falling off, but on that last record was one last fuck you to the world of music. The band released a little song called '1985'. Figuring their time was over, Allan allowed his friends in another awful band, Bowling For Soup, to cover the song and ruin the summer of 2004 for me. Their version actually had Radio Disney edits to make the song appropriate for awful children, so that just shows how much integrity the song had. Allan eventually became a ghost writer for countless vapid musicians, and his legacy continues to blight the cultural landscape to this day. The term 'Gap Punk' has never been more appropriate.

BLITZ GIVES THIS VIDEO ONE GOOFY LOOKING SCOOTER OUT OF FIVE.
-
The Offspring - 'Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)'. From the 1998 album 'Americana'.
-

-
One of the most culturally impactful videos of the 90's, 'Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)' was a perfect cultural storm. You had a punk band purposefully appropriating the signifiers of rap culture in a silly way, all in a moderately proven musical commodity backed by a flashy McG video. America was ready for it. I was ready for it. I saw this video everyday 5 times for a year, and I was down. Sexy 'punk rock' and 'rap video' girls dancing over a goofy song? You bet I loved it.

I was the ideal mark for this album, and I listened to it probably 500 times in my life. It was my favorite album for a long time. Looking back, it's hard to see why. I relistened to 'Americana' and there's a lot of filler on that record, even for a goddamn Offspring album. I still kind of like some of those songs. 'Staring at the Sun' is pretty enjoyable, and the album's centerpiece 'Americana' is dumb, but still alright. But, 'Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)' is just not good. The song is just wrong. No one loves a fucking wannabe. Wannabes are fucking annoying assholes who intrude on people's passions and good times. Wannabes are dudes that wear Offspring shirts to an M.D.C. show and complain when they get decked in the mouth. Jesus, these articles are making me hate myself more and more.

Oh, I almost forgot. Fuck McG.

BLITZ GIVES THIS VIDEO ONE LOWRIDE OUT OF FIVE.
-
Millencolin - 'Penguins and Polar Bears'. From the 2000 album 'Pennybridge Pioneers'.
-

-
Ok, enough self-loathing for now. Let's focus on something fun. Millencolin were a poppy skate-punk outfit from Sweden. They weren't overly silly and goofy like a Blink 182, they weren't baselessly self-righteous like Green Day would soon become, and most of all they didn't have that whiny tattle-tale vocal style all those fucking awful bands did. This is probably why they hold up the best more than a decade later. I don't think I actually have anything bad to say about Millencolin. They're fun. Wow, it's kind of weird to not bag on one of these songs. So... Umm... Yeah, moving on.
BLITZ GIVES THIS VIDEO FIVE ELEMENTAL POWERS OUT OF FIVE.
-
Blink 182 - 'All the Small Things'. From the 1999 album 'Enema of the State'.
-
 

-
Back to the self-loathing. Blink 182 are in the running for the worst band I loved with a passion. So much has rightly been said about how terrible this band is, and their irrevocable damage to the cultural landscape. The dearth of shitty bands that were birthed from their rise to glory is staggering. The awful side-projects the band members started were equally as unlistenable. There's nothing redeemable about this band, and I think most of the blame for that falls squarely on Tom DeLonge.

DeLonge was the guitarist and split-duty lead vocalist of the band, and was the singer for most of their most famous hits. This is the problem. His voice is the worst kind of petulant whine so common amongst these bands. Mark Hoppus, the other vocalist, has a much less grating voice. I mean, Blink 182 was never going to put out 'Exile on Main Street', no matter the singer. But, GODDAMN. The video also shows a clear lack of self-awareness on their part. These dudes are the Backstreet Boys with more tattoos and a basic concept of musical construction. This video isn't a parody, it's the eventual end result.

The dudes eventually split up to form +44 and Angels & Airwaves. Both were terrible, but Angels & Airwaves (DeLonge's band) claimed that it would be "the best music in generations". It should come as no surprise that this hubris was fueled by an unchecked ego and massive amounts of painkillers. Obviously, the band was trash but the audacity of it all is still unbelievable to this day.

BLITZ GIVES THIS VIDEO ONE LIP RING OUT OF FIVE.