Heccubus.Blog

Let’s get something out of the way first: the Grammys are a complete farce. They are an insult to musicianship, artistic achievement and good taste. They pander to the lowest common denominator on almost every conceivable level, and seem to revel in that fact. I, personally, have a hard time believing that the judging panel for these ludicrous awards can actually believe in their choices. That said, here’s what I thought of the brief snippets that I happened to catch on TV in a restaurant, a friend’s house, and then a bar last night, presented in whatever order I happen to remember things in:

• The Black Eyed Peas are an embarassment. Remember “B.E.P. Empire” and its jabs and barbs directed toward fake, pop-oriented hip hop? Remember that song? It wasn’t until Fergie joined (read: ruined) the band and they released their first shameless grasp at commercial success, Elephunk, that this song went from being simply enjoyable to being an upright laugh riot. Their performance was deplorable in every way imaginable, right down to their costumes. Fergie’s in particular made her look like some sort of robotic, futuristic stripper, and the thought of that woman ever removing her clothes is, frankly, disgusting.
• I don’t care what anyone says, Pink has always seemed at least kind of cool to me. I’m fully aware that the majority of her “bad-girl” persona was probably manufactured to sell records–an idea enforced by how often she had to assure us that that’s who she really is earlier on in her career–but her personality has always appealed to me, despite her God-awful music. Her performance was, at the very least, physically impressive. Although I kind of kept waiting for her to fall and get killed and turn the night into a tragedy.
• Drake’s performance was alright, and Lil Wayne I guess must be worried about those upcoming weapons charges, as he seemed as though he was just phoning it in for most of the song. Travis Barker killed it on drums (as expected) but, and this was a massive surprise, it was Eminem who dominated the stage during their rendition of “Forever.” If that’s what we’re to expect from Eminem in the future, I might have to reconsider my levels of anticipation for Relapse 2.
• Mos Def with a beard: awesome.
• Jeff Bridges can make almost anything entertaining. He’s just generally kind of great.
• I fucking loathe Ringo Starr. Fuck you, Ringo.
• The Jonas Brothers still look ridiculous to me. I was hoping Russell Brand would just rush the stage and start belittling them in front of everyone like he did when he hosted the MTV awards that one time. I can’t wait for 10 years to pass when we start seeing news stories about how one of them was found in a hotel room with 3 hookers and an 8 ball of coke.

The Awards Themselves

• Record Of The Year went to fucking Kings Of Leon? I mean okay, the nominees list was pretty pathetic but come on. They have to be one of the worst bands to emerge in the past decade.
• Taylor Swift picked up Album Of The Year, which…well okay. Whatever. I guess I don’t completely hate her, but I think it’s mostly because she’s so dang cute. Was anyone else watching her acceptance speech and waiting for Kanye West to just storm the stage and make an ass of himself again?
• “Single Ladies” was apparently song of the year to the Grammy committee. That’s actually kind of sad.
• Who the fuck is the Zac Brown Band, and how did they beat out both MGMT and the Silversun Pickups–neither of whom are great, but it would be nice to see some of these left-field choices actually win once in a while–for Best New Artist? If I’ve never heard of you, you can’t be that good, Zac Brown. Thank Christ the Ting Tings didn’t win, though.
• Beyonce won for Best Female Pop Performance. Big fucking surprise. Adele should’ve gotten this one. She’s got just as much talent, and frankly, her music is actually good at times–something I can’t say for most of Beyonce’s oeuvre.
• This Jason Mraz assclown managed to beat out both John Legend and Stevie fucking Wonder for Best Male Pop Performance? Give me a fucking break.
• Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group went to the fucking Black Eyed Peas. STOP ENCOURAGING THEM, GRAMMY COMMITTEE.
• Jason Mraz got another award for Best Pop Collaboration. Hey, guys, I’m beginning to think that these Grammy Award things might not really reward artistic merit at all!
• I don’t listen to any of the nominees in the Best Pop Instrumental Performance or Album categories, so I don’t care about them.
• The God-damned Black Eyed Peas also got Best Pop Vocal Album. I don’t care for the rest of the nominees in that category, but anyone aside from them should have won that.
• Ah, my arch-nemesis Lady GaGa won for Best Dance Recording. Wait, that’s what passes for dance music in the mainstream eye nowadays? Get with the fucking program, kids. Remember when Justice was nominated in this category? That was a good year. The cunt also won the album award for this category, which is just insulting.
• Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album (a.k.a. adult contemporary shit that you only hear playing at the dentist’s office). Don’t care.
• Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance went to the fuckin’ Boss. Okay, so Springsteen’s last album was a complete wreck, and he should not in any way be rewarded for that mess, but it’s nice to see that he beat out…uh…oh man that category was pretty much win/win for me this year. He was up against Dylan, Prince, Neil Young, and…well ok fuck John Fogerty but man. Oh man.
• Kings of stupid Leon also won for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group? Jesus Christ, I would’ve even accepted U2 winning this one over these assholes. At least U2 has put out good music in the past. Kings Of Leon never have, and probably never will, release anything even remotely decent.
• Best Hard Rock Performance: all I care about is that Nickelback didn’t win. For one thing, they’ve turned into the sort of mopey, balladeering puss-rock band that commonly gets referred to as “Coldplay,” but also because they’re just one of the worst things to ever happen to music. Period. Good on you anyway, though, AC/DC. You haven’t been relevant for over 20 years and you can still get awards for it!
• Judas Priest picked up for Best Metal Performance. Ok. I mean, nothing good was nominated in that category, but I guess we’re a long way off before the Grammys start recognizing SunnO))) or Converge.
• I didn’t even know that Jeff Beck still recorded music, so his Best Rock Instrumental Performance win means nothing to me.
• I am no longer acknowledging any category that Kings of Leon won in. Sorry, Best Rock Song.
• Green Day won for Best Rock Album? Seriously? Well I guess it’s the lesser of 5 evils… Sort of.
• Okay, I like the new Phoenix album as much as anybody. It’s really good. But beating out David Byrne and Brian Eno’s amazing “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” for Best Alternative Music Album? Travesty. Also: it’s fucking 2010. Why in God’s name are you people still using the term “alternative” to describe music?
• Colbert won for Best Comedy Album. That is awesome. Would’ve been great to see Patton Oswalt win as well, but he said himself that he was just honored to be nominated so I guess he’s happy either way.
• Best Rap Solo Performance went to Jay-Z for the weak-ass autotune diss track, “D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune).” Thank God it wasn’t for “Empire State Of Mind” though. I’m fucking tired of that song. My choice was still Mos Def though. And he definitely had the best album on that list of nominees. The Grammys don’t know shit.
• Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group isn’t even worth acknowledging. Seriously what the fuck were they thinking with this list of nominees? Additionally, these aren’t “groups” here. All of the nominees are just tracks that happen to feature another MC or two. Where’s the collaboration category here, and why aren’t actual groups getting nominated in this one? Fuck you, Grammys.
• Best Rap/Sung Collaboration went to Hova as well. Not bad. “Run This Town” is pretty alright. How fucking hilarious would it have been to see this go to The Lonely Island/T-Pain though? “Run This Town” also picked up Best Rap Song which is…I don’t even know.
• Best Rap Album. Eminem. Relapse. Fuck. You. Grammys. He was up against Mos Def AND Q-Tip, and he managed to win. Two of the best hip hop artists ever, with two of their strongest albums of their entire careers, shot down by Eminem and his incredibly shitty, awful, terrible, vomit-inducing joke of a “comeback” album. I love Em, I can’t help but love the guy, but that album was just horrible. Like I said, the Grammy committee don’t know shit.
• Not even touching all of the R&B, country, gospel and latin categories. I don’t even know most of that shit.
• As evidence of how far Wilco has fallen, remember how they used to get nominated as a rock or “alternative” band? Well now they’re under Best Americana Album, right alongside creaky old dudes like Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. The one nominee in this list that I’ve never heard of is the one who picked up the award though, so I can’t really comment on it any further.
• All Byrne and Eno managed to get was the Best Recording Package award. That’s so fucking sad.

I think that’s all I can muster. Really, the 2010 Grammys proved to me that I should really just not watch these farcical award ceremonies. Ever. For the rest of my life.

At some point around 2004 or so, I gave up on punk rock. I decided that it was passe and moved on. The entire genre just seemed stagnant to me. In 2006, however, Jay Reatard released his solo debut Blood Visions. I was instantly hooked, and completely inspired, and my faith in punk was restored. Reatard’s music was a mixture of chaotic garage rock and bubblegum pop. He played instantly addictive pop songs through a filter of dirty, stupid garage punk, and I loved every second of it. After maintaining my status as a die-hard Reatard fan for about four years, I arrived home from work on January 13th to learn that he had died that morning. My immediate reaction as complete disbelief. Jay seemed like the sort of musician who would have evolved over time to become even greater than he already was. His songwriting was already phenomenal, and he still managed to show room for improvement with time.
Anyone who regularly follows the site would know that 2009’s Watch Me Fall was among my favorite albums of the year. It’s mixture of pop hooks and punk attitude made it an instant success for me. Reatard, through all of his various musical outlets (the Reatards, Terror Visions, Destruction Unit, Lost Sounds, and solo) had always managed to keep me interested, but his final LP sealed it for me. He was one of this generation’s most impressive talents, and it was only a mater of time before he skyrocketed to success and renown. It is a tragedy, and a tremendous loss, to know that he will never achieve that now. Jay Reatard was by far and away one of the past decade’s most gifted performers, and I can only hope that his music will live on to inspire future generations of jaded punk rock outcasts.
Jay, your vast musical output will give me a lifetime of happiness and inspiration. I thank you for simply being who you were, and for basically doing whatever the fuck you wanted over the past few years. You will forever exist in my mind as one of the greatest losses that punk rock has suffered in the past decade. Rest in peace.

Aaand this is it. The only thing that I really keep this website up and running for. And considering I’ve moved the whole thing offsite for the past two years running, it almost makes more sense to just give up and stop with the “ooooh I have a website even though I never update it” bullshit and run the whole deal off of my RYM page. But I digress.
Here it is, kids. My picks for the best 50 albums of the past year. 2009 was a Hell of a year for music. Here’s hoping 2010 is even better.

Now, then, given my recent history, it is safe to say Merry Christmas (or happy Whatever-Winter-Festival-It-Is-That-You-Celebrate), and see you all next year.

Twenty-three albums that were good, but not quite good enough for my top 50. Yup, it’s Honorable Mentions time. The 50 best albums list will be up in a few minutes.

It is that time again, children. Time to kick off my annual year-end wrap up of the year in music. To start things off, as always, the 50 worst albums of 2009. The 50 best albums list should be coming along soon. It’s just that I still have a lot of stuff to wade through and listen to before I feel that I can make the list that best sums up my favourites from the past year.

Sit tight, kids.

Went out a few times since the last photo update, but I ran out of batteries for my camera, and I’m currently running on empty as far as money is concerned, so there aren’t any new pictures to share.
Went thrifting the other day, but didn’t find a damned thing in the store worth buying. Did see a used skateboard sitting in a pile of junk, but it was too busted up to bother with. Got me humming this song almost nonstop for the next few days though:

Other than that, ditched off a load of shitty old hipster clothes and put out a few resumes then spent a good 48 hours laughing about Kanye West being an asshole in public again. What gets me about it is how people reacted so negatively, as if we’re not used to him being such a dick yet. Though I suppose it’s high time people stopped letting him get away with that kind of shit. I guess no one cared when he did it to Justice because they weren’t mega-famous pop stars yet. The other thing that got me laughing in the past few days is Patrick Swayze dying. Not the event itself, of course (seriously, condolences to his family, etc) but the way that suddenly–like Michael Jackson before him–everyone liked Patrick Swayze. Do I even need to remind you assholes that the man was a mediocre actor who never once made a good movie? I guess Ghost was alright, but that’s about it. All of his movies were awful, and two weeks ago you all would have said the exact same thing. Sort of like how two weeks before Michael Jackson died he was still just a creepy old pedophile.
Anyway, just popping in for the sake of not going months on end without updating anymore. I’m trying, people. I am planning on getting “Son Of Human Prey” running on a proper schedule again too. Now that things have quieted down a bit in the dying days of summer, I should be able to put something together a bit more regularly.
Later, Hellions.

Just some stuff that I’ve been listening to. For some reason I’ve been on a hip hop kick:

Talib Kweli – Get By

Hearing stuff like this reminds me of why I got interested in hip hop to begin with. Sure I like the odd track by Lil Wayne or what have you but shit like that is precisely what made me hate rap for so long in high school. It’s always good to stop and listen to the innovators and the true originals.

Me and Devereaux hit up Vdara tonight. Why did we go to this small, shitty, uninteresting bar? $5 got us a shot and a beer until midnight. That’s why.

Devereaux trying to be coy.

Dude couldn’t spin for shit. Nice shirt though.

Some serious Silent Hill shit going on.

Nice socks.

Asshole checklist: Track jacket? Check. Popped collar on a golf shirt? Check. Baseball cap? Check. Let’s do this, bro.

Our boy Jeff. Or is it Geoff? Either way, awesome dude.

I don’t know this guy, but he knew Jeff/Geoff and seemed okay.

Just realized now that this bitch flipped me off. Next time I see her I’m gonna piss in her drink. Serves her right for hanging around with the Kollege Krew here.

5-0

“Sweetie, you need to get some shoes.” “I KNOW!” She was a treat.

The single most beautiful girl we saw all night, and she couldn’t even fucking stand up. Nice acid wash, princess. Shitty jeans or not, though, she was lovely.

Let’s see… Downtown Toronto on a Saturday night… Oh hey, Dude With A Saw. What’s up?

Went and met up with our boy Alex at Java House. He was already trashed, but had a couple of ladies with him. Nice girls.

Steph and a couple of douche-bags that snuck into the background. She was pretty alright. Horrible taste in everything, though.

Bryan Hell recommends the stuffed French toast…

…With a side of nicotine.

Fauxrissey

Whoops. I swear I was trying to take a picture of her shoes without looking. She had awesome shoes on.

Adorable.

Kollege Krew II: Son Of Kollege Krew

Nothing to say, really…

Winner: Worst Everything Ever

Motley Crue? Fuck outta here…

Devereaux & Steph

Coolest mother-fuckers I ever met: Kimar and Omar (I know I spelled at least one of them wrong).

Gucci

We chilled with these guys for like an hour and a half. They were so happy to hang out too. “White dudes are usually afraid of us.” Man, I’m wearin’ a Run-DMC shirt. You think I’m afraid of black dudes?

I don’t know that girl’s name. We all just kept calling her Lindsay Lohan.

Ladies love Bryan Hell.

Lohan. Right after this I tried to get her to let me take a picture of her bent over the hood of her car, and her ass broke the fucking camera. No lie.

There was more after this, but my fucking camera’s batteries died. We went and sat on top of a school (the location of our infamous marshmallow roast) and watched the sun come up. Picked up some random and stole some beers off of him, broke some equipment in the midst of some street festival, and then finally broke for home. Stopped on my way and got a BLT with home fries and a side of sausage at Midway.
It’s 11:00 AM. I am fucking beat.

See you next time, Hellions.

…is getting fucking lame. I’m seriously getting tired of writing only about music whenever I update here. So from now on, we’re lookin’ at the way shit used to be. Yeah I’m still gonna talk about music whenever I can because, well let’s face it, that is all I’ve got, but whenever I come up with some stupid little thing that I wanna bitch about, I’ll be letting you loyal H.B readers in on it first. These are just the privileges that come with being long-time readers. So:

My mom is basically the most hilarious person alive, whether she realizes it or not. I posted a note in my Facebook status earlier today saying that I was looking for a 35mm camera if anyone had one they wanted to give away, so here’s the email she sends to my step-dad:

Is there one of these in the closet you won ‘t be using? I think I asked before … maybe he would get his mind on something more constructive.

Oh, mom… What could be more constructive than booze, cigarettes and rock and roll? I’m only fucking 24 years old for Christ’s sake. Still, God willing, I might be getting my hand on a Pentax with a few lenses in the next few weeks. Expect some rad-ass photo-blogging if this happens.

Oh, plus my boy Justin is going to throw me his digicam cheap-as-free if I can provide batteries and an SD card. So definitely expect some photo-blogging. We’re gonna get all Cobrasnake up in here. Then I will be so fucking popular that I’ll buy a Benz and use the windshield wipers to open my bottles of Patron.

Fuck I’m tired.

More later, Hellions.

PS, I had some crazy-ass adventures with my buddy Devereaux earlier that resulted in my acquiring the greatest Bic lighter of all time:

Parrots, represent.