Three albums you NEED to listen to this month:

NUMBER ONE: Put Your Back N 2 It Perfume Genius

• This is an amazing album. It’s fantastic. Stop reading this and go listen.

NUMBER TWO: See What Tomorrow Brings Peter Paul & Mary

 

• My favorite song is “Early Mornin’ Rain”. This album is essential to life. Just trust me. I’m never wrong.

Oberstcult Part IV: The Asshole Saga Continues

Oberstcult has continued, yet again, to prove her intelligence by responding to my posts on Tumblr. Let’s examine her newest response.

 

First Oberstcult continues to make the assumption that I am hipster by claiming that I have admitted to be one in a previous post. This is false, I only said I would become a hipster if it meant it would further our romantic relationship. 

Second, she claims that my only insult is calling someone an “asshole”. This is also false, I use lots of insults. I also never insulted her by calling her an asshole. Instead I have made it her pet name, like when a guy calls a girl babe. I call her asshole.

Third, she extends an invitation to me to visit her blog and spend more than a second on it, assuming I care about her personal life. Of course, if it makes you want me more, then I care deeply and I’ll make it up to you asshole.

Fourth, another assumption that I care.

Fifth, she claims that I desire to be a professional music blogger or “something”. Forgets I just made a Tumblr yesterday. 

Sixth, she attempts to insult me one more time by calling me a hipster.

Fascinating stuff people. Oberstcult, aka Mrs. fuckeveryhipster, continues to obsess over my posts and me, begging me to join her hipster ways and spend nights with her, making out, listening to Bright Eyes on a record player despite the invention of the fucking computer, while expressing our hate for pop music. It really is true love.

But wait, there is more. Mrs. fuckeveryhipster has a Tumblr friend who defends her honor.

First, I’d like to point out that northemdownpour is clearly a fucking Canadian, as expressed in her use of the phrase, “eh?”. Not that it matters. I just thought I’d point it out.

Second, this is true, Mrs. FEH has nothing to prove to me. I already love her.

Third, this is also true, don’t listen to me. We’ve been talking too much. Let’s let our bodies do the talking. I’ll be your “lover you don’t have to love”, if you will. Your “yellow bird”. Your dream come true.

A Night With Sufjan Stevens

I’m not going to lie. I’m a Sufjan Stevens fan. I think his stuff is pretty great. And when I heard he was going on tour last year I was super excited. So, like any good fan, I bought tickets the second they became available. One for me, and one for my girlfriend at the time. Now my girlfriend wasn’t the biggest Sufjan fan, but she could appreciate his music and she was excited about going to the show. 

Then the album Age of Adz came out. I bought it, loved it, and my girlfriend bought, and loved it. So I was like, “wait, you love it?” and she was like, “yes, it’s amazing!”. So I was like, cool, my girlfriend loves it. 

So as the months passed and we waited for the show to come, she fell more and more in love with Sufjan. She played the album a lot when we were driving around and she praised it constantly (while reminding me she didn’t care for his other material) and continuously expressed more and more excitement for the upcoming concert. And that was great, except that I had recently lost feelings for her and I wanted to break up.

We all make mistakes.

So the show gets closer and closer and I feel like more and more of an asshole. Meanwhile, my best friend is practically begging me to take her to the show. And I’m like, “I already promised (let’s call her Sally, because why the fuck not) Sally that I would take her”. And my friend was like, “you’re a shitty friend, dump your girlfriend”.

So my girlfriend starts noticing that I’m getting distant and we haven’t even made out in like a week so she finally confronts me (she is one of those “strong female personality” type girls aka sometimes a bitch). I admit to her I’ve lost my feelings and she freaks out asking how that happens and I’m like, “I’m not a fucking scientist”, and she’s like, “we were in love”. Eventually, I blurt out, “we can still be friends”.

“remember when I dumped you? shit, i mean what do you want to do?”

Finally, it’s the night of the show. I never got around to telling my ex-girlfriend I didn’t want her to go and I have no choice but to take her. But I’m still pumped for Sufjan and my ex-girlfriend is pumped too. In fact, she talked about that asshole the whole way there.

Once inside, we sit down and talk like I didn’t just dump her the other week and like she doesn’t secretly hate me. She asks me if I think my ex-girlfriend is at the show too because she’s a bitch and steals my ideas. I respond yes, but I’m talking about her.

Then the show starts, first the opening act, and then SUFJAN STEVENS. Everyone is super excited, including me, and girls are practically pissing their pants in anticipation of seeing Sufjan in all of his glory. The asian girls in front of me take out a camera and start taking pictures, and I make a tourist joke. It’s an exciting night.

Then, the first song starts, and my ex-girlfriend starts to cry, which is really not flattering because she’s not an attractive cryer and sort of embarrassing so I leaned in the other direction so people thought I was alone. 

How did he get his voice like that?

At last, the night was over and we walk out of the theatre while passing my other ex-girlfriend who was at the show because she’s a bitch and steals my ideas. The drive home is mostly silent except that she thanks me before getting out of the car. For a minute I thought we might make out, but we didn’t.

The Tree Of Life Review

So the other day I decided I would go see “The Tree Of Life” before it left theatres. I had been looking forward to it for a while and it sounded like a great movie. Plus, the critics were giving it rave reviews. I was expecting see an instant classic. Instead I got a thirty minute sequence that included some jellyfish swimming around and bunch of dinosaurs.

EXT. Desert - Day. Sean Penn walks around for thirty minutes. Critics shit pants.

Since the movie wasn’t playing at my local theatre my friends and I decided we would make the thirty minute drive to the closest art cinema. Not before stopping at the gas station and getting some candy first, of course.

My friend says, “we should get gummy bears”. And my other friend is like, “get sour skittles” so I’m like, “how about the best of both worlds?”. Perplexed, they ask for more information regarding my comment/question. Instead of vocally replying I lean down and grab a yellow and green bag, look at it for a moment, and toss it to my friend. He gasps. Why didn’t he think of this before, he wonders to himself.

Best part of movie.

At this point we are ready for the drive. It’s about thirty minutes so we’ve got a lot to talk about. We talk about our favorite movies, listen to The Black Eyed Peas, and blame each others farts on dead skunks. Time flies and before we know we are parking in a parking lot close to the theatre.

Once outside my friend comments on the atmosphere. “It’s great here!” he says. And it was. 

At the ticket window I proudly proclaimed that I would like one ticket to The Tree Of Life and made an offer concerning payment. The ticket guy responded with the actual price which I paid and then received my ticket.

We got into the theatre to find ourselves alone. “More people should be getting here, we are here a bit early” my friend says. “when does the movie start?” I ask. “A couple minutes” he replies, just as someone else is walking in.

This guy.

Finally the trailers start. First we see the trailer for “Beginners” (which looks fucking fantastic), then we see a couple trailers for some movies that obviously sucked because I didn’t remember what they were. There was a trailer for a horse documentary though, and I said “this looks good” and my friend laughed, so he thought I was joking. I’ll see it alone.

And then.. the moment we were waiting for.. THE TREE OF LIFE. The movie critics have been going crazy about. The movie I can’t stop hearing about on Facebook.

Then, after a few bags of candy, a few laughs, and honest disbelief, the movie was over. No conclusion, no story line, and no dialogue for Sean Penn. Just one big acid trip. My friend looks at me, and I look at him. Then I look at my other friend and he looks at me. Then all together we say, “What the..”.

“Okay, put dinosaurs in this scene” “But Terrence, that doesn’t make sense..” “I DON’T CARE I LIKE FUCKING DINOSAURS, JELLYFISH, FUCKING VOLCANOES AND DESERT”

The walk out of the theatre was definitely awkward. We had all just wasted time, money and gasoline. On top of that I couldn’t even taste anymore because that’s what 2 and a half hours of sour patch kids does to your tongue. 

We stopped by the poster and started laughing at the quote by one critic, “A MOVIE THAT DEFIES CATEGORIZATION”. Or basically “A MOVIE THAT DOESNT MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE BUT I DONT WANT TO LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE AND BE THE FIRST ONE TO SAY I WANT MY MONEY BACK”. 

Yeah. It sucked. But, keeping in spirit with all of the apparently fucking blind and deaf critics, I award “The Tree Of Life”:

FIVE OUT FIVE STARS

Because no other movie can suck so bad and still have every critic on the planet sucking it’s dick. That’s just something else right there.

Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall Sucks Balls

I haven’t always had the great fucking taste in music that I have now. In fact, before my sophomore year in high school the only thing I listened to were movie scores and one edited Blink 182 CD that some family member no one invited to my birthday party probably bought for me.

In middle school my friend had an iPod and because I was a fucking kid in middle school I wanted what other kids had so of course I begged my parents for an iPod. My parents probably wanted to say, “you don’t need a fucking iPod because we don’t want you to get beat up for getting caught listening to the Jurassic Park soundtrack in class”, but instead they said, “we’ll think about it”. Well they thought about it for a long fucking time and eventually I got an iPod. 

The first night I had it I just kept it under my bed because frankly I didn’t know what to do with an iPod. The next morning I borrowed some of my mom’s CDs (U2 and Coldplay, mom stuff) and put them on the iPod. I went to school and I listened to U2 and Coldplay and told my mom “Clocks is a great song” and she said “yeah it is” and I imagined making a movie based around the song Clocks because the song was begging to be played while someone ran through the rain.

This scene would have been better if Clocks were playing.

The next day at school I asked my friend if he would burn me a CD of all of the music on his CD and he said “yes”. So I got his burned CD and I put his music on my iPod too. I think he had Yellowcard and Ben Folds because I guess we lived in a time where people only owned two fucking CD’s.

So basically what I’m trying to say is that I’ve been a fan of Coldplay since my mom and every other mom in the USA bought a rush of blood to the head on release day. So for a while now.

Recently Coldplay announced the news that they were releasing a new album. Amazing right? Everything they’ve released so far has been pretty good so I figured the new stuff was going to be pretty good. Then I heard the first song “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall”. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

The first thing you hear is a synthesizer Chris Martin probably borrowed from The Black Eyed Peas. Okay. So maybe they are switching it up a little, no need to freak out.

I TURN THE MUSIC UP, I GOT MY RECORDS ON - Chris Martin

I guess Chris Martin forgot he wasn’t fucking Justin Bieber. What follows for the next four minutes or so is one the shittiest song ever made. If you’ve never heard it imagine a really talented band you like and now imagine what they would sound like if they were retarded.

And all the kids they dance, all the kids all night.

So in order to save Coldplay’s career, because I’m a nice guy and I actually have enjoyed some of their previous work, I am going do them a favor.

I’ve written a press release for them explaining why their new album sucks balls but also saying not to worry because the next album won’t be shit.

I suppose most of you at this point have heard our newest song “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” and have thrown up all over your computers while at the same time wondering what the fuck “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” even means and what it has to do with kids dancing all night. For those of you who haven’t stabbed themselves in the ears preventing them from listening to any music in the future, we have some good news and an explanation. First the explanation. 

This album was written when I was twelve years old. I recently stumbled across some tapes my mother apparently recorded of me while I sang nonsense in my sleep. I showed them to the guys and they said, “we should, for fun, record this fucking nonsense you made up when you were twelve and release it for all to hear so they can be in on the joke with us on how terrible of a songwriter you were when you twelve years old and you thought the phrase “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” made sense and was fucking cool”. I hesitantly agreed and we got to work. It was really easy because most of the songs had only a couple chords and my younger self left notes for my future self just in case I ever considered re-recording my old material. One note, in particular, said, “make it sound like shit”. So we did just that.

Now the good news. We are already working on our next album and it’s material that I didn’t write when I was twelve. It sounds like a grown man wrote it and the lyrics make sense.

In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to release all of this shit without first warning people of it’s origin. But as I always say, better late than never. 

P.S. If the next album is shitty it’s because I found more tapes of myself when I was twelve.

Problem averted. Your welcome Coldplay.