Hey, don't ever accuse Spike Anderson of abandoning prole traditions. I once was in the ELF....lived in the Verdugo Mountains for a few weeks eating grubs and drinking river water with Shelby Danger, the bassist of Blood Herp. So celebrate - go cut a tree down and stick in yer living room. BACK TO THE EARTH BITCHES!
PS: Here's me and Rivers in '95. Our ska-core venture was cut short following Al Goldstein's heart attack at A&M Records and us getting kicked off the Warped Tour for mainlining draino-niacin shooters.
(The following is an excerpt from a recording made available to Spike Anderson via connections with Weezer's management)
Manager: ...so then you're going to have to bend over for the CEO of Interscope at the Christmas party or you'll have to bring Mikey Welsh back and do an entire malls across America/West Virginia Wal-mart tour as an opening act for Paramour. (reaches for bag of DMT)
Rivers Cuomo: mmm hmm. (sniffs index finger)
Manager: Which brings me to another point: the new album. It needs to be simple-minded enough so that 7 year olds will love it, yet endearing to tasteless old people who prefer things when they were bland and inoffensive. And let's try to keep it devoid of anything that makes the audience think too hard or they'll all just throw your record into the "Shiloe pile".
Rivers: oh yeah.
Manager: I hear this Lady Gaga is popular. I don't know who she is or what style of music she plays but you should try to cover one of her songs. And fuck, why not make it a mash-up of a MGMT song while you're at it? I don't know who that band is either, but I like acronyms and I've rubbed a fair bit of cocaine on my gums for breakfast. I'll call up Mel at Universal, I think they still have the prop MICROKORGs from the Ladytron debacle. (takes puff of DMT) EXHIBIT A:
Rivers: definitely.
Manager: Okay....yeessss...i'm starting to peak! Fuck, pinky in the ass - PINKY IN THE ASS! Okay, okay...the new albumis called "raditude". Lets see, we already did blue - tested well with curious teens with boners market. Green went after twenty-somethings with high school girlfriends..eh with a slight crossover of ICQ users...and Soccer moms, sex addicted orphans, and prego teens ate up the red cover. So we have no choice, this cover's going to be written in yellow lightning font and it's going have a crazy picture of a flying dog on it. Oh fuck, did you just see that? EXHIBIT B: Rivers: smart. yesss! (sniffs finger)
Manager: Most of the songs are going to be about awkward teenage love even though you're pushing forty and frighten most children. Of course one song is going to be called "Can't Stop Partyin'" and will feature Lil' Wayne. Because why the fuck not?!? And shit, man, make the album come free with the first thing you can find on the Home Shopping Network. Shamwow towel? Billy Mays' certified cock ring? Snuggie? Your call. (hits the DMT again) Shit, I'm blind!
Rivers: mmmm....uh huh.
Manager: Your first single is going to be a horrible song with no chord changes and a laughably simple drum beat. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, due to the economic climate Pat will be replaced by a BOSS Dr. Rhythm. Also, kids these days like auto-tune, so the bridge will be nothing but auto-tuned harmonies that still sound really off-key. If you need help with this, I have Green Day in my Rolodex. Then we'll shoot a video for it that will feature your band at a 50's style gas station doing absolutely nothing with as many special effects thrown in as we can. Pat is allowed to be in the video...if you want? The lyrics will be about...lets consult the Disney-Idea-Wheel and...ha, of course! - meeting your girlfriend's parents, archery, the movie Titanic, weave in an inappropriate boner and uh...some more shit about awkward teenage romance. EXHIBIT C:
Rivers: Yup...wait, how will the video relate to the lyrics at all?
Manager: (huffs a handful of dirty, gasoline-soaked panties) Uh, what was the question?
Why do Weezer keep pissing all over their own legacy? They have no idea how bad they are now, do they? Obviously they don't have any objective view of their own music anymore, as is evidenced by this cover of "Paranoid Android":
It's not even that Rivers has a bad voice. I can accept that it just sounds different (worse, but different). But I just can't take the ending guitar solo, which is trainwrecked to shit. Fast forward to 5:49 to hear it. It's one of the most famous guitar solos ever recorded, and not only do they fail to play any of the parts of the original recording, but they actually fail to play in the right fucking KEY. Wow. But hey, it's not like this was posted somewhere where thousands and thousands of people will see it, right?!
In case you're wondering how hard it is to play this solo, here's a video of some college kid actually doing it right:
This college kid is recording it in his dorm for fun and making 0 dollars for it. Weezer, however, are signed to Epitaph records and making hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. These are, by definition, PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS. As far as I can tell, there are a total of 5 different videos of people playing the solo right on YouTube. Next time you're thinking about buying a Weezer record, find out if one of those 5 people have a record out and buy THAT.
There are many, many people on this planet who play music and work hard at learning an instrument. But they never get any exposure and no one ever hears their music. They toil in obscurity until they die and never make a dime off of their art. Does that stop them from doing what they love? No. Meanwhile, Weezer are making money left and right off of substandard music that they barely bother to play correctly, and no one cares.
Tomorrow, when you and I both get up and go to jobs we don't particularly care for, to work for people we dislike, to make just a small amount of money so that we can live...stop and think about what the members of Weezer are doing at that particular moment. And that would be pretty much anything but PRACTICING.
Hey fuckos, occasionally Spike hits the town to move his product, unload flyers in the dumpster behind the HOB, and catch some tunes. I would have shared this with you fledging little Spikesters if I hadn't taken a coke nap in Salinas for two weeks.
Didn't catch the band's name. CWG Mansion, Hollywood Hills Oct 31, 2009
7:15 pm Wow, they're on already? Okay, its early, but fuck yeah, I'm ready to forget about that sloppy hobo who tried to stab me for my Snack Wrap at Macarthur Park. The excitement in the air is thick - its a hard pill to swallow that there are only 10 people in the room. By my calculations: Parents, a guy that runs a label from his basement, and girlfriends holding man-purses. Oh, by the way I swear it wasn't B12 and baby powder, I only sell that shit to burnt out hippies from Boyle Heights. Anyway, back to the show and the best band American Express can buy. So the band comes on and I quickly pop some amyl nitrate in anticipation (might as well drinks are double the cost of my ticket at the mission).
7:17pm After what seemed like an hour, ruining my amyl buzz, the band finally flips the switch on their instruments. Right away I can tell that this is not the correct venue for their type of music. Personally, I would have recommended a venue along the lines of a windowless bedroom in El Monte...hopefully one equipped with a 15w amp and some solid noise canceling earphones - just my opinion.
7:35pm Is the bass even turned on because at this point all I'm hearin is a some yuppy dicking around on his guitar while whining about transylvania and the thermostat at the office.
7:39pm The last of my amyl buzz is gone. Certified. I wonder if I can get a weez off of the Newcastle spigot when the bartender isn't looking? Fuck, all this Blue Ribbon is giving me rotgut - but it remains plentiful as long as the audience of Wire-loving-douchepumps keep abandoning their cups when they take bathroom breaks to rip some toot.
7:40pm Can you actually call yourself psychedelic if you have the range and creativity of a 2x4...this is painful, its like the band is playing roshambo with effects pedals.
7:52pm Ok, well, more calculated feedback and boner hiding poses. Time to tune out - I hope they're serving turkey chili at the mission on Slauson tonight, gotta remember to stop by Jag's squat to pick up more baking powder and gelatin capsules...you know the hard stuff - okay sets over. Well, my final impression is that no one will remember this band by next week. But, you can't fault them for trying, for following their dreams...I mean I remember when I wanted to be the Hamburglar but alas, here I am outside the club trying to move roadblock and z-jays by Sergie (my Belarussian confidant) to curious twenty-somethings (if you gotta ask you can't afford it).
Yeah, I manage bands professionally. Sometimes not so professionally when the charlie supply is low and one of these trust fund crybabies calls me up because they want to get out of their pay-to-pretend-they-have-talent contracts.
And by the way, if I don't pay you for your latest gig beneath that offramp off highway 134, it's because I need that money to hire an army of questionably female hookers to rut with just so that I can forget my own existence and sleep at night. Wondering what it's like being Spike Anderson? Well, probably in college you got to experience that hilarious prank where your buddies get you an escort for your birthday only to wake up and see pictures of her teabagging your forehead because she was really a transsexual. Then they send the pictures to your friends and relatives and it winds up on the Internet and you're ostracized from your community forever and every night you wake up in a cold sweat, swiping at your forehead because you feel phantom scrotum there. To combat the nightmare you buy a Dolce & Gabbana messenger bag and tell everyone on MIRC that you're bisexual but that only leads to a computer virus on the PC at the library and weird charges on your credit card. That's pretty much it.
The point is, fuckos, you've got to stick together when you're a shit band. Having friends who loudly and frequently reassure you that you're great allows you to ignore all your doubts about your life or choice of career. And let's face it: you have plenty of time to alienate one another with your various social defects once you're stuck in a shitty van driving around Seattle's trendy truck stop district with your shitbag bandmates looking for bikerdope and a reason to say fuck it lets go acoustic. Comprende?
The music scene now is a different animal than Grandpa Jizzstain was used to. While he was getting paid to tag herpes-encrusted groupies and yawn through a set of shitty Moody Blues covers at the Rainbow Room, you're stuck playing a garage sale in Pico Rivera for all the magic markers you can lodge up a nostril. Next thing you know your surfing Craig's List for anonymous sex, kush, and a part-time drummer that hates money.
Non-consensual prison love? Sure, one minute its a shared quip with you and your sleigh bell player - in between bumps off an Gary from Ohio's ass - and before you know its bloody amphetamine shits in the corner of your Public Storage converted bedroom/jack closet. And now "Geoff" from Minneapolis is howling into your keyboardist's didgeridoo right before he fires up his '90 Honda Accord and takes off with your PS3 and hog bucket. Once in I told Diana Doom - of AIDS Taco fame and also the holder of my Husker Du jacket while I sold PCP Roadblock to Redondo skins outside the Coconut Teaser - only use Craig's List for moving massive amounts of hydro and for gift wrapping anal warts to twinks. Its a slippery slope. Oh, "but its free!" you say? Yeah, and so are your shows. Besides, your shitty distortion jangle pop abomination of a band will need the DSL money to spend on high grade amyl (none of that Hawaiian Gardens shit) and on the best nipple clamp specialist Dom from the LA XXpress the El Ray can buy. I'm filled with the knowledge and yet you shove past me with your latte into a Thursday Matinee at Boardners.
Kids these days think they're too good to hire a manager. They figure "hey. let's book our own gigs and keep the extra 30% cut." Well 30% of 0 means pay to play and jacking bottom dwarfs in the back alley, Loyd London. Get fucked.
You need a real manager and not some ex-convict who has seen Jesus and heard his commands to help you get your music out for a $600 one-time upfront meth payout. I don't care if that guy brings all of his buddies from the work detail of cell-block 3A to your gigs, you aren't going to get that residency at the Draft brewery any time soon. Also, at the gig he's supposed to bring all his buddies to he himself will refuse to show, as he's probably too busy riding the snake inside a stall of the Y on Slauson. True story.
So you'll find your entire career has been nothing but a series of final shows at venues just before they close down and the management has to sell the place and become full-time sperm donors to keep their skag habit in line. And I would know. That's all I did for a job when I was living with step-mom during the winter of '86 while managing Julie Cloaca and the Unemployment Lines.
You've heard my gospel now feel appreciative, poser.
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