Genre Confusion is Dead

Future updates on all subjects will occur at andrewjpatrick.com. If wish to know why, go here. Or just go to the new blog and check out that action.

It will remain here, and provide much ammunition for anyone who wishes to call me a hack writer desperately envious of his betters.

But otherwise ...

The Black Keys are Back. And Presumably, Still Black.

Under the Radar:

Each song is its own piece of soulful groove. Hurling forward at full-throttle, this is The Black Keys' most direct and consistent album yet. With the new audience the two have garnered from 2010's Brothers, expect to hear these songs on everything from car commercials to the nearly extinct rock radio. There isn't a bad song in the bunch, nor a moment to relax until you've ingested El Camino in full.

That sounds perfect, and indeed, exactly like what the album was promised: a full-on, rocked out stack of Clash-meets-Cramps stew. Only problem, and this is minor, is the album cover:

That is not an El Camino. That is a minivan (a '91 Dodge Grand Caravan, unless I miss my guess). And showing a picture of a minivan and deliberately mislabeling it an El Camino is about as funny as the generic labelling that accompanied Brothers. Which is to say, it's not all that funny at all.

Unless of course, it's some kind of trash-culture riff on how an El Camino is really just a glorified mom-mobile. In which case, they couldn't be more wrong. I like the look of the picture, and I like the lettering. But  I don't see how having an actual El Camino would not have made a better picture.

Talking Back to Punk Rock #16

"Do whatever you want; just stop calling me 'Mommy.' There's a fine line between goth-metal-punk, or whatever you are, and just being fucking weird."

- The Misfits, "Mommy, May I Go Out And Kill Tonight?"

Rating My CD's: That's How Strong My Love Is

50. Otis Redding -- The Very Best of Otis Redding


Otis Redding is awesome. This is known. Those who don't know it haven't really heard the man. Maybe they've heard "Sittin' By the Dock of the Bay," and are off-put by the whistling at the end. But they haven't heard "These Arms of Mine." They haven't heard the original "Respect" (Aretha was an ovarian interloper!). They haven't heard "Mr. Pitiful."

James Brown may be the Godfather of Soul, but Otis is Soul. Which makes no sense, because They were both around at the same time. But while James Brown had funk to spare and could get on the good foot for the big payback, Otis didn't need no purple cape to hold a crowd. Like Howlin' Wolf, Otis was all presence.

Pajamas Media's Generic Punk List

"So You Think You Hate Punk Rock? 5 Bands That Will Change Your Mind" sounds promising. It has precisely one band that most mainstream music fans haven't already heard of and associated with Punk Rock: Radio Birdman. The rest are the Damned, The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash. All of which are fine (with reservations on the Clash that I'll go into later), but hardly a fresh look at the (non) genre. I would have added instead:

• The Voidoids
• Television
• The Misfits
• The Buzzcocks

All of which are second-tier bands of slightly less renown, and all of which bring a slightly different element. And as Glen Reynolds points out, there's a lot of good ground to be covered in Proto-Punk like the MC5 or the Stooges. That may not be Iggy Pop in the picture atop the article, but it's someone actively copying him.

C for effort. F for execution.

This Rolling Stones Video is Pretty Cool...

But I'm going to do a better one for my Apologetics Class as an intro to reading The Screwtape Letters. Look for it sometime in the spring. Bit busy at present.