2020 Grammy Nominations

The annual Grammy nominations list is out, and as I was told this morning by the screen in our elevator, Lizzo and Billie Eilish have dominated the nominations.  Which is all very exciting, and probably correct, except for the fact that Lizzo has been making music for years, and so yet again nominating her for Best New Artist in 2020 is freaking weird.

Anyway, some random observations:

• Album of the Year somehow includes fucking Lil Nas X.  Which is unbelievable.  I mean, give the guy a nod for "Old Town Road" being the catchiest track of the year, but anyone who considers his album (the 18 minute long 7) anything other than forgettable is crazy.  Otherwise, this list is kind of whack - Bon Iver, Lana Del Rey, Eilish, Ariana Grande, H.E.R., Lizzo, and Vampire Weekend?  I guess Lizzo and Eilish are the favorites there - those two blew up this year - but that just feels like a really weak slate.
• Best new artist includes Austin band Black Pumas!  That is kind of exciting, even if likely would never happen.  Having Yola and Maggie Rogers in there is very cool as well.  BUt this one is either going to Eilish or Lizzo.
• My favorite anger-inducing piece of this announcement is always to go look at the Rock nominations and get all steamed about how dumb they look.  Best Rock Performance.  Gary Clark Jr. makes rock.  That one is OK.  Bones UK makes industrial electronic, there is no way that Karen O and Danger Mouse are making rock and roll (edit, I heard it, and its not better than any of the other retro rock things on the Black Keys album), and I've never even heard of Rival Sons.  How do they do this every year - find some unknown random band (oh no, wait, it couldn't be because this is all for profit and some agent or producer or something bought this nom?  NO way.).  It makes no sense at all that "Lo/Hi" isn't on this list.  Much less something off the new Cage the Elephant, Tool, or some other band actually playing rock and roll you have heard of.
• The Best Rock Song includes one by the 1975.  Which is 98% synth beat track and 2% high pitched guitar noodling.
• The Best Rock album has something called Bring Me The Horizon (which sounds like emo), Cage the Elephant, The fucking Cranberries, something called I Prevail, and then that same Rival Sons band.  Cranberries?  Three bands I've never heard of (and I listen to a bunch of rock and roll).  So weird.
• Alternative isn't much better - Bon Iver, James Blake, Big Thief, Vampire Weekend, and Thom Yorke.  I mean, I suppose "alternative" can mean anything, but the radio stations that we grew up on, listening to "alternative" play Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and others in the edge of the rock world, James Blake has nothing at all to do with that world.  Bon Iver and Thom Yorke really don't either.  This is weird.
• I don't think I have ever heard any of the songs nominated for Rap Performance.  Best Rap Album nominates something called Dreamville, the yelped garbage that is Meek Mill, the mumbled trash that is 21 Savage, the confusing R&B meanderings of Tyler the Creator, and something called YBN Cordae.  Really?  Was there no good rap this entire year?

This entire thing is crazy pills.

Quick Hits, Vol. 231 (Wu Tang Clan, The Mountain Goats, Charly Bliss, Kanye West)

I just watched Juice last night - the 90's movie with Tupac in a starring role.  It made me realize that I don't think I've ever seen any of the movies with him in them.  Which seems kind of weird - I went down a rabbit hole and found that he was in a number of movies.  Most of those were not popular, but his performance in Juice was great.  I'd slightly fault the director or writer who made him with the ability to just pop up anywhere like a monster in a scary movie, but his on-screen transition from generally happy dude with a small mean streak to a full on sociopath was well done.  Now I'm gonna end up watching Dridlock'd and Poetic Justice and being very disappointed...
Wu Tang Clan - Of Mics & Men Soundtrack.  There is apparently a documentary about the group on Showtime right now, and this very short album is the soundtrack for it.  Don't expect that you are going to get their classic songs - these are new tracks for this docuseries.  None of them even come anywhere close to the classics - the beats are weaker, the rhymes are uninspired - but the great piece to me are the skits/interviews.  "Yo, Is You Cheo," a story told by a guy who got punched in the eye by one of the members because he talked smack about caricatures drawn of the members for a magazine story, is funny.  The story in "One Rhyme" is cool.  The opening track is the top streamer - "On That Sh8T Again," with 1.7 million streams.

Ghostface has always been my favorite of the Wu members - best storyteller, a distinctive flow - so I'm glad he is featured on that one.  I'll let this little album go.

The Mountain Goats - In League With Dragons.  Pretty sure I came across these guys because of a friend mentioning them repeatedly on Twitter.  I've never come across them or heard any of their music, and yet they have been firing out albums since 1994, and this is their 17th. (!!!) Kind of weird feeling to "find" a band that has been plugging along for decades.  This is their 2019 album, and it has a very relaxed, kind of Decemberists vibe to it.  The first comparison I came up with was the part of the Barenaked Ladies catalog where they go kind of soft, but after a few more trips through the album, The Decemberists have lodged into my mind as the proper comparison.  The top track so far,m with 760k streams, is "Younger."

"Possum by Night" is a pretty one as well - something about it sounds familiar.  And the "Cadaver Sniffing Dog" song is also pretty snappy.  "Doc Gooden" makes me think that I actually like the album - a little higher tempo, weird lyrics that includes a reference to "Mama Said Knock You Out."  And the odd story in "Waylon Jennings Live!" is funny.  I don't know man, the album is nice.  Super chilled and odd, but its kinda pretty.

Charly Bliss - Young Enough.  I loved their last album - "Westermark" is my jam, and "Ruby" and "Percolator" are fun ass tunes too.  Sometimes, as I listen to a full album of theirs though, the tone of the lead singer's voice makes me wonder if it's annoying or good.  I generally then decide that it is good, but just every once in a while it comes across as a little whiny and I question myself again.  This generally still tracks to the same sound - power poppy punk-ish rock - although none of these have that same unmistakable swagger as those tracks from the last album.  The hit is "Capacity," with just under a million streams.

Pretty little rock ditty - but it just never really takes off.  I keep waiting for the guitar licks to really kick in - they kind of squeak around for a sec in the second verse, but then they duck back into their hole.  I know that not every song has to be a rock and roll banger, but this one just feels like it's missing a little more swagger.  There are other, more fun songs on here, and I like this album well enough, but it's not as good IMO as the last one.

Kanye West - Jesus is King.  This guy is such a freaking asshat.  His first few albums were absolute masterpieces.  Great beats, amazingly funny and intricate lyrics, important topics.  He hit every single button for the best that rap has to offer.  And since then, he's turned into this petulant, bomb-throwing, out-of-touch, crazy person who makes nonsensical decisions to the delight and disgust of the entire country.  

And so this is his newest bomb - thrown out in the midst of a crisis of religion in America, where our administration repeatedly pushes policies and makes statements diametrically at odds with the teachings of the Bible, and yet they get solid and unblinking support from the supposed Evangelical folks.  I gave it the benefit of the doubt at first - OK, Kanye is going to make a real Christian album and move the conversation forward.  But instead, you end up with this furtherance of his personal brand of grievances and gripes about how much he himself is mistreated and misunderstood, sprinkled throughout with bland religious tropes he adds as though those out-of-context lines can somehow connect without any effort.  "I bleach my hair for every time I couldn't die, but I survived, that's on God."  I mean, he literally shouts out Chick Fil A repeatedly in "Closed on Sunday."  Which is funny now that they have pulled their support for the anti-LGBTQ groups...

I know he has repped Christianity before - "Jesus Walks" had not only a good message but a great beat - but this just feels like either performance art or insincere exploitation.  I can't tell which because the dude is so damn weird and inscrutable, that there is no way to understand where he is really coming from.  This just uses Bible verses and vaguely biblical phrases and words to create a thin veneer of Christianity, once it is combined with the pretty solid choral pieces in the background of many of these tracks.  But if his goal really is to convert people to Christianity, he should spend more time talking about actual key teachings of God, or fruits of the spirit - things like grace and justice and kindness and love for your fellow man, rather than griping about the IRS or shouting out his ranch.  

I mean, he calls out the thirteenth amendment twice (the one abolishing slavery), saying "we gotta end it" on "On God."  What the actual hell is that about?  Is he seriously adding a lyric, on an ostensibly Christian album, about going back to fucking slavery in America?  And the problem is that many people will just see the headline that Kanye is saved and putting out a gospel album called Jesus is King, and be so pleased by the news, without realizing that this is just a little nugget of dogshit, shoved between the pages of an open Bible, eased shut and handed to a kid for Confirmation.

Luckily the album is only 27 minutes long.  But no, I am absolutely not hanging on to this garbage.

The Black Keys: Erwin Center: November 13, 2019

I'm a sucker for the Black Keys.  I, maybe foolishly, invited the wife to come along to this one, thinking that they are a relatively benign radio rock band that wouldn't be too offensive to her musical tastes, but I think in the end I pushed it a touch too hard.  These guys get pretty raucous when they jam.

"you're the Black Keys, goddammit."  I just laughed out loud when they fist bumped.  I'm a big dork.

Modest Mouse was the opening band we saw - we made it to the show too late to catch any of the set from Shannon and the Clams, mainly because the parking situation around the Erwin Center is freaking horrific.  I was excited to see MM - if I've ever seen them before I don't recall it (but part of me feels like I've caught them at ACL before) - and I have a friend who loves them.  The music sounded great - I really enjoyed the semi-weirdness of their groove and the three guys all blasting percussion effects into the tunes - but the vocals sounded godawful.  Just fully washed out and unintelligible.  The guy literally could have been mumbling the word "pineapple" every time he opened his mouth, for all I could tell.  Which is too bad, because I'd like to like those guys.  Also, at one point I decided to run out for another beverage, and when I came back to my row, the single guy at the end of our row didn't move for me when I walked up with both hands full of drinks.  He was straight up asleep.  Had to bump his knee with my hand and he sheepishly jumped up.  You know the show is scintillating when someone can rack out during it!  Anyway, I was bummed about this part of the show.

The Keys played a hell of a good set.  They included a handful of tracks from the excellent new album, they included tracks from the old albums like Magic Potion and Thickfreakness, and then they played the hits in between.  My favorite part of the night was also my favorite song - "Little Black Submarines" from El Camino - where Auerbach started the track out with an acoustic guitar and then shifted on the fly to bash out the rest of the tune with his electric.  So freaking good.  I also loved that they played the real version of the song, and not the annoying radio version that cuts out a portion of the acoustic build up at the start, because: (1) I got to lord my knowledge of the song over those around me who expected an earlier shift to electric; and (2) its a better song like that.  I also really liked "Lo/Hi" and "Go," played back-to-back during the encore.  For the encore, they brought out a huge ass electric chair thing to sit at the back of the stage.  Seems odd to just bring that out for the last three songs, but whatever.

As I was getting psyched up for the show over the past week, I got to thinking, yet again, about who the best rock and roll bands are in America right now.  Personally, I'd have the Keys near the top of the list, but when I just tried running a search, I see that Billboard would give the crown to Imagine Dragons in 2018, with something called Five Finger Death Punch at #5, so I apparently know nothing at all about rock and roll anymore.  I guess that comes from, in large part, the diversification and splintering of the genre, so that now you have 87 different types of music that would all think of themselves as "rock," but I don't want to hear.  If these guys are in the same zone as black metal and glam and psych rock and emo, then it's hard to locate things like "best."  Whatever, these guys are a great rock and roll band.  Shut up, Richard.

Black Keys do a great job of staying relatively close to the originals of the tunes, but slightly different so that you aren't just sitting there listening to the album at home.  Also, my wife was semi-amazed at how much Patrick Carney hits his drums, which I found hysterical.

Lots of empty seats in the arena, which I thought was interesting.  I snapped up my tickets the second they went on sale, expecting this one would sell out, but I guess I overestimate the draw of classic rock action in today's rap-centered world.  And once I realized there were lots of empty spots, I realized that the show could have been at a smaller, better venue, which would have been sweet!  Oh well.  Good show.

Quick Hits, Vol. 230 (Vampire Weekend, Joni Mitchell, Joni Mitchell, The National)

I went to the Erwin Center in Austin last night to see the Black Keys play, and I happened to have been there the night before for a Texas basketball game.  It is fascinating to me how arenas can flip their space like that, and go from being a brightly lit basketball arena with a huge, four-sided jumbotron thing imposing its will on the center of the room, over a hardwood court that looks seamless and glossy, and then less than 24 hours later be set up as a dark half-room ready for the lazer show and rock riffage.  I'm sure it's not actually exciting to watch it transform, but the idea of that stuff happening fascinates me.
Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride.  Now, I'm well aware that I am supposed to hate this album.  All the cool kids have already written their hit job pieces about how this is grandpa music, or Grateful Dead knockoff crap, or "failed Sting."  I like Drew Magary's take on just about anything, and my musical tastes definitely hew towards his, meaning there is usually a huge riff and some chugging and it makes you want to run through a brick wall.  But he is wrong about this one.  

First off, he is wrong about the opening song having a children's choir - or at least a children's choir in the traditional sense of that term - there are some sort of weird effects tacked onto their voices (backwards?), and someone in there is definitely already a baritone.  But also, that opening track has one of the Haim sisters adding in a fine countrified lyrics over a mellow fingerpicking and pedal steel.  It's nice.

Then, I've already written about how fun I think "Harmony Hall" is.  So this one starts with a classical guitar playing some Rachmaninoff trill, that then slides right into a party-starting piano riff pulled from an early 90's Brit-pop track like "Unbelievable," that then soars its way into an Orbital atmospheric track.  When the pianos kick in it is all euphoria and happiness, just bounding in to give you a huge hug.

It's greatness.  "I don't wanna live like this, but I don't wanna die" is a great sing-along line.  Good stuff.  Vampire Weekend has always done this very interesting thing of using classical music riffs and elements, and then dragging them into a modern shift.  The underlying music and chords used in that tune could very well sound like a classical piece of music, if the words and percussion were removed and it was just played with piano and cello.

I forget where I read that people were saying this sounds like a Grateful Dead redux, but I suspect it must have been in Rolling Stone.  I guess I can hear that in some songs, but the overall vibe is not one of noodling jam band rock - it very much sounds like classic Vampire Weekend to me.  Which is a positive.  "This Life" is good - maybe some latter days Dead in there, like the "Touch of Gray" era.  "Sunflower" is fun (I guess that one does have more of a Dead vibe too).  "Big Blue" is pretty, with a George-Harrison-on-guitar vibe.  I like the groove of "Unbearably White," although until I really listened hard to the lyrics, I was worried it was a song about the style of this band.

I'd say my only beef with the album is the length.  They probably could have cut out a few songs and made a stronger overall experience.  I'd probably cut the Spanish clappy "Sympathy" and the final track about Berlin and New York.  But overall very good!  That was an exceedingly long take, for one of the quick hit posts!

Joni Mitchell - Blue.  Joni Mitchell is one of those artists who I kind of generally know exists, and remember because of that Big Yellow Taxi song, but have never really given any mind to.  Probably the most I've ever thought about her is because of the movie Love Actually, when Professor Snape gave Professor Trelawny a copy of Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now, which caused Professor Trelawny to cry alot because it meant that Severus was for sure boning the secretary.  So now I think of sadness when I think of Joni Mitchell.

Anyway, Rolling Stone had one of those two page spreads recently that ran down the best and greatest things from Mitchell's career, and so I thought I'd take the time to consider her two best things.  This stuff is truly beautiful.  Something like "Little Green" just showcases her astonishing voice over the most simple of guitar, and it feels important, while also feeling melancholy.  Mitchell goes from a light whisper to a brassy full-throated tone without any apparent effort, and her lyrics are excellent.  There is a new show on Netflix, that I can't decide whether I actually like, where Ben Platt sang "River" in the first or second episode, and it was one of the most beautiful moments in television I can remember.  His voice is also astonishing, and lyrically it's an interesting tune, that comes off as a Christmas carol at first.

And in case you are interested to hear the Ben Platt version, here you go:

MF'er.  That is so good.  I so very much wish I could go back and see Dear Evan Hansen when he was in it.  We loved the musical, and the guy in the main role when we saw it was still excellent, but I can't believe we missed Platt.

Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon.  I won't fully review this one, because they pretty well meld into one another in my mind, but this one is also beautiful.  I feel like I need to save this for some cold, rainy day and then play it for the family and see if I can make everyone cry.  Although, the melancholy breaks for a second for her to fire out "Big Yellow Taxi," one of the best anti-gentrification/sprawl/pollution anthems since Talking Heads "This is the Place."

Also, if you recall, sampled in a cool way by Janet Jackson and Q-Tip a few decades ago.  This album also includes her song "Stardust," which was later covered by Crosby Stills Nash & Young (which is the only version I had ever heard before now).  Finally, "The Circle Game" is a freaking lovely song - reveals just how amazing she can be with lyrics.  I like both of these albums quite a bit - they really are beautiful and touching and worth keeping around.

The National - I Am Easy To Find.  If you've been around here for a while, then you know how much The National vexes me.  On the one hand, multiple people I like really like them.  On the other hand, I've never found an album of theirs that I actually enjoy.  But then when writing them up for ACL 2018, I found a live version of some tunes and I liked that sound much more.  
This album actually sounds kind of good though - the starting track comes out like a glitchy monster - "You Had Your Soul With You" - that kind of stumbles its way into my psyche, and then the sad pause in the middle throws it back to what I am used to hearing from these guys.  Apparently that female singer is someone named Gail Ann Dorsey, who was bassist for Bowie for a while, which is kinda cool.  The title track is also more of what I am used to hearing from them - kinda sad, kinda beautiful, wonderfully melodic tunes to play when you need to be bummed out.  And it also features a lady singer - as most of these songs do (it now dawns on me, after trying this album eight times).  In case you wanted to see a full on short film based upon these songs, guess what?  You're in luck!

Well, that was weird, and then it got a little more poignant and now I'm sad again. Although there were a couple of times while watching it that I felt like I had left Spotify playing while I tried to watch a movie - its a very weird construct, just having random music play as that woman ages.  Neat concept though.  
As for the actual album, I don't hate it, but yet again listening to the whole thing gets boring.  Oh, and its also really long - over an hour of this same experience.  "Where is Her Head" and "You Had Your Soul With You" are my standout tracks.  "Not in Kansas" and "So Far So Fast," back to back tracks on the back half of the album, are where you can really dig into the boredom and same-ness.  Even with all of those lady singers, this seems like more of the exact same I heard last time I heard one of their albums.  A depressing dread seeping into every nook and cranny, with an upbeat tune or two here and there to ramp up the energy before sinking back in.  I genuinely thought this review was going to go a better way, but more listening has solidified the feeling.  No thanks.

Quick Hits, Vol. 229 (Logic, Madonna, Tyler the Creator, Megan Thee Stallion)

Interesting (although I know maybe only to me) is the breakdown of where traffic is coming to this blog.  Blogger doesn't provide a city-by-city breakdown (which is too bad because that would be interesting), but they do provide by country.  The chart below shows the hits for the seven days before Weekend One of ACL, when I had around 1,200 hits.

United States	992
France	108
Ukraine	105
Nigeria	35
Russia	16
Unknown Region	8
Portugal	6
South Korea	5
Philippines	3
Germany	2

I figured all of my hits were friends seeing my post on Facebook and clicking through the link to do their pre-Fest research on the bands to see, but then I see that more than 250 of them come from France, Ukraine, or Nigeria.  Being that I don't actually believe that 105 people are in the Ukraine, boning up on whether they should check out The Japanese House versus Still Woozy, it surely looks like these are hits caused by bots or spiders or some other non-real system crawling through links shared on Facebook.  It's kind of freaky.

I thought about trying to same sort of sharing on Instagram and Twitter, just to see if the same sort of numbers pop up again, but my follower count on those two platforms is minuscule in comparison to all of the friends on Facebook.

Yet more evidence why I should delete Facebook, and the rest of the Internet, immediately.  OR, post more personal stories about my kids as I write about whether or not the falsettos in the new Fall Out Boy sound more like Hall or Oates!  One of the two!

Logic - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.  I don't know what it is about Logic, but I really like him.  I get the feeling that critics might find him cheesy, even though I've never gone to check out what others have said, but I think the speed of his flow and the interesting subjects that he brings up in his raps are very cool.  I know people crapped on his Eminem track on this album, but I don't hate that either.  It's not like Eminem drops a classic verse or anything, but it also isn't horrible.  To me, the beats are usually interesting and effective, either at giving a smooth vibe (the title track) or pushing you to hype ("Keanu Reeves"), and his dexterity in rap is awesome.  Sometimes the lamenting and complaining about how rude people online, or whatever else he is firing back against, can get old, but it is a million times more interesting than half of the rappers these days just saying nothing.  The Eminem track is the top streamer, but I'm going to provide the second place to you instead, "Keanu Reeves," with 128 million streams.

It's not the greatest album of all time or anything, but I enjoy the listen.  I'll say that most of the collaborations are pretty weak - G Eazy is lame, Wiz Khalifa is fine, Gucci is boring, and maybe Will Smith is the best one of them?  I just made the mistake of checking out a review of the album, where the reviewer freaking hated the entirety of it, and gave it a 1 out of 10.  Ouch.  Whatever, dude.  I enjoyed it!

Madonna - Madame X.  This is a horrible album.  Which I take no pleasure in writing, as I love classic Madonna music.  But this one is like her Latin American crossover disc, and it smells desperate and sad and is therefore a bummer.  She has a few rappers appear with her (Quavo, Swae Lee) and then some Latino folks I don't recognize (Maluma, Anitta), but the overall vibe of this one is desperation in trying to be relevant in this age of big crossover hits from Cardi B and Rosalia and Justin Beiber.  The opening track is BY FAR the most popular - where folks realized that this was a sad album and then ran away, so I won't give you that one, but here is the one with Anitta instead, "Faz Gostoso," the second most streamed at 21 million.

I promise you that the rest of the album isn't better than that.  Generic vibes and a general bummer for trying to latch onto a current moment.  I am very glad to remove it from my Q.

Tyler the Creator - IGOR.  I've really never understood the appeal of Tyler.  I feel like I have repeatedly tried his stuff on, because others act like he is the greatest thing around, and it never clicks with me.  This one has some cool things sonically, like the way album opener "IGOR'S THEME" kinda sounds like Outkast finding a synth and making something freaky, but then forgetting to actually rap over it.  But then when he goes with the rest of the album, its a little too much singing, and not enough good rapping, reminds me of the newer Childish Gambino tracks.  The top track is "Earfquake," which has a whopping 197.3 million streams!

I have no clue why people would want to hear that track 200 million times.  The rap in the middle isn't Tyler, I don't think (comments on YouTube say it is "carti," but he gets no credit in the titles on Spotify, so I dunno) and that rap is terrible.  The singing is sort of pretty I suppose, but it isn't amazing.  Weird stuff.  I don't much like the album overall.

Megan Thee Stallion - Fever.  She was one of the fun new things I found for this year's ACL, and overall I like this album.  My one beef with it is that she has a little sound that she makes A LOT during just about every song, that is kind of a "ehh" or "ahh," like she is sticking out her tongue and voicing displeasure with the taste of something she just licked.  Once or twice, that sound is great.  200 times over the course of the album?  Too much.  But, she's funny, and suuuuper raunchy, like a female Too $hort.  "Hood Rat Shit" is probably my favorite one, but I also like "Cash Shit," featuring someone named DaBaby, who I actually thought brought a good guest verse.  The one with Juicy J is pretty tight too.  This is that "Cash Shit" track with DaBaby, most popular on the album by a bunch at 55.8 million streams.

Got that braggadocio like the guy rappers, and then Baby comes in with the dirty ass rhymes.  I read something the other day saying that she just straight up missed her ACL show - an ACL spokesperson said that she didn't leave her hotel until after her scheduled time to perform.  Which is a pretty crappy thing to do to your fans who are pumped up about catching your set during the Fest.  I like this music, but it sounds like she needs to get her stuff together.

ACL 2020: A Protest Lineup?

OK, now I am fully aware that a lineup prediction when the grass is still trampled to death in the park is almost always complete folly, but I had a good idea for a cool lineup the other day when I found out that Rage Against the Machine is reforming for several shows that include Coachella headlining.  

The All Protest Headliners Lineup.

Man, Rage rules.  Their live in LA album from like 15 years ago is so awesome, I've always believed they would be a rad live show.

Think about it - the 2020 election day will be less than a month after the two weekends of the Festival.  If the current political climate is any indication, the entire nation will be frothing at the mouth with fear and excitement and loathing and anger.  So what better way to sink our teeth into that environment than to have a lineup of headliners who all know how to stick it to the man?

Rage Against the Machine.  Even if we don't have a festival of all protest music, this would be an amazing addition to the lineup for me.  Never seen them live, but would love to see them blast out the jams in a big festival setting.  The only shows announced so far are El Paso, Las Cruces, Phoenix, and Coachella, so they have plenty of time to come to Austin in October and rage through their hits for us.

Bruce Springsteen.  I've been wishing that he would show up on the lineup for about as long as I've been writing about these lineups.  Not necessarily so that I could hear him play Ghost of Tom Joad from front to back or something, but just so that I could enjoy the hits and finally see Springsteen.  Forbes says that he is going to put out a new album and tour in 2020, so this one could actually work!

Green Day.  American Idiot from front to back, anyone?  They are on tour right now for something called the "Hella Mega Tour," which is an unfortunate name, and also features Weezer and Fall Out Boy.  Which, I have to say, actually appeals to me regardless of how much that hurts my credibility.  The tour hits Dallas and Houston in July 2020, but no Austin or San Antonio dates.  Plus, the tour ends on August 29 in Philly, so they have plenty of time to rest up to come and blast us with Dookie at Zilker.  Who says no!?!

Public Enemy.  Fight the Power!  I mean, this would be super cool to see them again.  I saw them a few years back at Stubb's and they still bring the noise.  However, the web has no evidence of them touring at all, and their last Twitter entry was in November 2017.  That being said, Chuck D has been playing with the Rage guys as part of the Prophets of Rage project, so why not bring the guys together to support their homies?

Neil Young.  Although I'd actually prefer to have Pearl Jam come and just play "Rockin' in the Free World" on his behalf...  I read that he postponed 2019 touring plans to work on movies, but that he is "likely to tour" with Crazy Horse in 2020.  And then this article says that he wants to do a "Democracy Tour" in 2020.  So, sure, why not?  That fits into what I am trying to put together here.

Bob Dylan.  Don't get me wrong - I'd rather not listen to Dylan croak on stage for two hours.  Did that one time and am fine without hearing it again.  That being said, any discussion of an artist who puts out political lyrics that crush the competition would be woefully incomplete without Dylan.  He is currently on a tour that ends in April 2020 in Japan, so he could fit it in.

Dixie Chicks.  Prior to crapping on W, and releasing "I'm Not Ready to Make Nice," you probably wouldn't have called them a political band, but with that history, and them getting pretty well cancelled by conservative Country radio, now I could see it.  Also, how awesome would it be to see them in Austin?  I had tickets years ago when they came through the Austin 360 Amphitheater but we ended up having to sell the tickets.  Their website only lists two shows next year, and the second is in Austin in February.  Hell you say!  I want tickets to that immediately.  It is a show called "Voices for Justice" and includes Gary Clark Jr.  See!  They are wanting to tour on the back of political messages!  They've got the time and space to make it happen!

Uh, like System of a Down?  Or U2?  Or an NWA reunion?  Like half of all bands have already sent out a cease and desist to Trump to stop using their songs at his rallies, so I can't just blanket include them.  But other folks have kind of generally spoken up about political issues in the past.  An R.E.M. reunion?  Be still my beating heart.  Dave Matthews Band?  Is Joan Baez still alive?  Wilco and Billy Bragg could come and play all the Woodie Guthrie songs from Mermaid Avenue?  Crosby Stills & Nash could come without Young?  John Cougar Mellencamp?  He slammed Trump at a Farm Aid show.  Willie Nelson?  He seems primed for it.  Hell, Taylor Swift has started speaking out politically, even if none of her songs ever go there...

On the other hand, ACL could book some counterpoint artists like Kanye West and Kid Rock and Ted Nugent to come play to provide the counterpoint for all of the MAGA folks.

It's an interesting idea though, right?  Right?

Helmet: The Mohawk: November 2, 2019

Somewhat hilariously, I bought my tickets to go see this show like 30 seconds after they went on sale, back in June.  I set a calendar reminder, and was driving at the time near Boulder, Colorado, so I had my wife deal with scoring two tickets even though I was very clear with her that this show was not one she would enjoy.  But I scored tickets!  I'm in!  And then everyone I talked to before the show kicked off had bought their tickets like a week ago because it didn't come close to selling out.  Whatever!  As I've mentioned before, Meantime is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I was intensely into going to this show.

So, these guys really haven't made popular music in forever (only recently did I realize that they have made four albums since 2004), but they declared that this was their thirtieth anniversary, so they were going to do 30 shows of 30 songs for their 30th.  Although, something that wasn't apparent until the band took the stage, its really just Page Hamilton and then some younger dudes who have learned the old tunes.  Which, I'm not sure it really mattered, but part of me is bummed that it wasn't the original lineup.

No opener.  Doors opened at 8 and without an opener, I was worried that meant we needed to be there at 8.  Which meant we were in very prime position (to get kicked a bunch, but more on that later) and then had to cool our jets for an hour and a half before they took the stage.  But then it was all worth it.  They are extremely hard, and I know that isn't for everyone, but the level of complexity and unconventional time signatures they use, with a ton of repetition, while staying so hard, is one of the coolest parts.

My only complaint with the tunes is that I thought the vocals could have been louder in the speakers - Page got washed out by the crushing riffage for much of the show.  And also I could have used more tunes from Meantime - I think they played 3 or 4 - and I'm very jealous that the show before us got all of Strap it On, in order.  But even with a few more Betty songs than I would have wanted, it still ruled.  They covered Bjork's "Army of Me," for crying out loud.  How more On Brand for me could they get?  So, overall, the show was freaking awesome.

An aside that came to me both during and after the show though.  When I was a kid, and going to shows like Helmet or GWAR or whatever at Liberty Lunch, you would see some goober either vaguely or more explicitly dressing up like a Nazi - high black boots, maybe one of those hats, jacket or vest with patches on it, whatever.  For bands that had nothing to do with neo-Nazi views at all.  Like, freaking Mudhoney or something.  But in those days, maybe out of pure naivety from me, it felt like dumb dress up stuff, like some kid who thought it would be a laugh to draw a swastika on his hand before the show.  But in the new political landscape of today, that shit freaks me out.  There was a dude in the Mohawk crowd with a close-cropped, blonde, flattop haircut, wearing a silver shirt that had the big eagle thing that is on all of the boxes at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark (or at least it looked that way to me), who walked right over to the one African-American dude in the crowd and raised his hand up in the middle of the guy's back.  He didn't do anything - never touched him that I could see - but he also might have noticed me pausing in my old-man-lite-thrashing to eyeball his sketchy-looking ass.  After a few seconds of looking like he was about to shove the guy into the moon, he squeezed away to somewhere else.  Later, I saw a different kind of skeevy guy drop a folding knife on the floor and then quickly pick it up to shove it back into his big leather jacket.  A young kid and I both saw it, exchanged eyebrows-up looks, and edged back from the guy a little bit.  Now, neither of those dudes did a damn thing, but my radar definitely picked them up in a way I don't think I would have in 1992.  Made the watching experience a little more wary.  Which sucks.

Also of note, that one African-American dude in the crowd.  Had the best energy in the whole place - just exuberantly singing along and jumping and trying to crowd-surf the pit.  I loved having him up there in the pit.  Although, at one point her did a sweet scissor-kick freakout jump while directly in front of me, and caught me squarely on the thigh, with a light squash to the left nad, and I could have used a touch less exuberance in that particular moment.

This is the longest live music review I have written in a while.  One more story - I actually caught a pick from Page.  Freaking awesome - I never get to snag things like that at a show, and I didn't even try for it.  He flung it from the front of the stage, and it careened through the air to neatly wedge in the crook of my folded arms.  The people around me fired up their phone flashlights and were scouring the floor, and I got to proudly hold up my prize.  Sweet!

Rage Against the Machine!!!

DUDE!

Rage Against the Machine is re-forming, and going to headline Coachella.  THIS NEEDS TO BE ONE OF THE HEADLINERS FOR AUSTIN CITY LIMITS!  Please, please, let's do this!  Would be freaking HUGE!