The Automatik

It’s oh so fine getting out of your mind as long as you can find your way back in.

Pulp was one of my favorite bands for four entire years; I scarcely listened to anything else from 1996 to 1999. Then they took several years to work on the follow up to This is Hardcore and I got tired of waiting; they basically disappeared from my radar. Yet as the release date of We Love Life approached, I grew rabidly anxious. This Is Hardcore, while featuring such excellent tunes as “Help The Aged,” “Party Hard” and the title track, was rather an anomaly in the Pulp catalogue, even more than the stratospherically popular Different Class, so I was hoping for a return to old skool Pulp (like my favorite album of theirs, His ?n’ Hers).
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The Shim Sham Club
November 29, 2001

I’ve seen El Vez and his Memphis Mariachi and El Vettes so many times, I can’t even remember how many. He always puts on a good show and I am always entertained, delighted, and frequently thrilled.
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The first time I saw this movie, I hated it. I hated the flat, emotionless voice over and the faux-Film Noir stylings. I loathed this movie for the next four years and dreaded the idea of having to analyze it for my Science Fiction Cinema class when I was a junior in college. After I watched it, though, I did a Pauline Kael and realized that it was truly amazing. I loved it even more when the Director’s Cut was released a few years later without all that ridiculous voice-over rubbish.
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The Shim Sham Club
November 24, 2001

One of the great things about club shows is that they’re relatively inexpensive ($8 to $15) so if the band sucks, you don’t feel like you got ripped off. Ironically, this was one of the better shows I’ve seen by a band I’d never heard before and I didn’t even have to pay! My friend Laura, who was working with the promoters, put me on her “plus one” list. Yay!
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Be true to your teeth or they will be false…to you.
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The Howlin’ Wolf
November 16, 2001

I will admit that I have never owned a Stereolab album. I’ve heard plenty enough played by friends, and that is part of the reason I went to the show. The other part is that there is a paucity of shows with interesting, non-local bands on the weekends and I didn’t want to miss out on a potential great time.
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The Howlin’ Wolf
November 10, 2001

I was so excited about this show that I bought a wig and wore it there. That’s gotta count for something. The Woggles always put on a good show, but I hadn’t seen them in years because they always play on a school night. I’d never seen Mr. Quintron, because he not only plays on school nights, he plays in terribly crack �n’ crime infested neighborhoods. But now I have seen the light.
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The Howlin’ Wolf
November 9, 2001

Is nothing sacred? Not for David Cross, and thank God. The September 11 terrorist attacks, retarded people, President Bush, Christians, Scientologists, and even urine drinkers are all targets of his blisteringly liberal yet refreshingly politically incorrect rants.
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I’m reeling from this Canoe article, “Sloan has carved its own musical niche” (scroll to November 3, 2001). I totally agree with Andrew Scott when he says, “I hate everything that’s out there. There isn’t a band on the radio today that I have any respect for.” And shame on you, journo Mike Ross, for insinuating somehow that strong, negative opinions are bad. I myself am sick to death of musicians and celebrities that have no business collaborating or even being friends pumping each other up to nauseating levels (no names mentioned, ahem, Ben Stiller and Limp Bizkit, Steven Tyler and Pink, Puff Daddy and anyone…shall I go on?)
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