Music Critics Are Dicks - Puke, Poetry & Imagine Dragons

I started writing a review for a band called Imagine Dragons a few months back and never finished it. I never finished it because by the time I got to thinking about what I would write, I felt like such a terrible dickbag that I fully severed my relationship with the music website I had been writing for, for over three years.

I just opened up the unfinished file because I saw that Imagine Dragons were playing at Launch Music Festival in Sacramento later on the year. Below what you will find is why I cannot be a music critic anymore. Something, musically, so inoffensive and not really all that evocative, one way or another, made me just spew bile all over it. Not even real “I just ate spaghetti” barf, just uneventful, acidic bile. No poetry whatsoever. So yes, I think there is something slightly beautiful about puke, but there is absolutely nothing beautiful about hyperbole just because.

I started out listening to each track and writing down my initial thought or feeling.  I got as far as track 11 before I realized I needed to stop, think about why I had predetermined that this album wasn't cool enough for me and walk away.  Who would you rather be: the guy raging balls, jumping up and down, grinning like a fool and screaming the words to every song with all your friends, or the skeptical dickhead in the back - arms folded, loudly sighing and making sarcastic comments with the person next to you that you wish you were fucking but don't have the balls to even try.  I know what I am.

Imagine Dragons – Night Visions 

1. Radioactive – car commercial edm puke 
2. Tiptoe – “let’s make an 80’s song”-said the transparent, soulless band with no identity 
3. It’s Time – oh I know why I feel like ive heard this song before, it’s one of those “I go to a cool church” songs 
4. Demons – throwaway 
5. On Top of the World – some sort of fucking Vampire Weekend walkabout tra-la-la bullshit 
6. Amsterdam – this kind of rocks, so why does it not really feel like it? 
7. Hear Me – not a terrible song 
8. Every Night – an actual terrible song 
9. Bleeding Out – this piece of music does not need to exist 
10. Underdog – hey, I would listen to this. Postal Service-y without the moleskin journal entries 
11. Nothing Left to Say - ehhhhhh.....

Door Guy Chronicles - 3/30/2013

This weekend was weird and shitty and I knew it was going to be weird and shitty because I can’t say no or compromise plans and obligations.  This isn’t the same thing as being unable to commit in search of that bigger and better thing; I just say yes to everything and then try to make it work.  So I knew this weekend was going to be a bit stressful, with work and play sitting on each of my shoulders trying to convince me to fuck the other thing - all the while time constantly being pinched at every corner.

I already have a problem with being way too metaphor-y, but seriously, I look back at my bank account now and can’t help but see the correlation between money leaving and time slipping.  $18 at Murphy Pub cost me 30 minutes of time, $60 ($64.95 after all the charges) out at that shitty liquor store across from Mitchell Bros; that cost me an our and half (and a little bit of dignity).

Despite trying to be two places at one time all weekend, it was pretty rad seeing  friends and getting super high before I went to work every night.  So I'll spare the term "shitty" for things that are actually shitty and just call it a bit of a clusterfuck.

• Some dude at the bar was pontificating outside on the whole “Tupac vs. Biggie” debate that hasn’t had a new wrinkle for over 10 years now, except he starting comparing that fictitious debate to an even fictitious-er Beyonce vs. Adele debate.   I’m only now realizing the obvious SAT question forming*, but I thought it was crazy interesting at the time that the dude was arguing Beyonce as Tupac and Adele as Biggie.
• That same guy almost fought one of our regulars**, who I’ll call “the Scientist,” after the dickhead scientist (one of those “im super smart and like to make other people feel dumb” guys) repeatedly called him a “moron” for his stance on religion.  Not cool to make fun of a person’s religious beliefs, but I like the family-friendly insults.
•  As I’m checking the ID’s of a couple walking in, the dude asks his girlfriend a question and she gives him a look and walks in.  His defeated response to me: “I love my girlfriend…(HUGE sigh)…she’s such a bitch. (Pause) She looks good, but…(another sigh)…so much attitude.  (Pause) All the time.”  Good luck buddy.
• One of the things I have in my notes is “barebelly guy in shorts.”  This isn’t ringing any sort of bell with me, like I said, I was pretty stoned.  And drunk.  Nevertheless, you can imagine what it was and believe it was pretty hilarious, or take it at face value and “barebelly guy in shorts” is still just kind of a funny thing.
  
  * Tupac : Biggie :: Beyonce : Adele
  ** Actually, both guys are regulars and I can see awkwardness in the near future