I am the new Lester Bangs
A newsletter "mixtape" of rock 'n roll jokes, music nerdiness, and 100% correct opinions.
I just can’t with the width of jeans these days. Here’s The Ramones if they were Gen Z…
This is how I use AI. Pretty punk rock, eh? At least it’s a better image than…
That just seems like an ED pill ad targeted at seniors.
Btw, I was gifted a couch recently:
🎶 Got time, time to wait for tomorrow / To find it, to find it, to find it 🎶
We have fun. Here are some more goofy/legit music musings…
🥁 “Disco nap” is a great way to use music to cover up depression. Let’s do more of that: ”I’m not having nightmares, they’re jazz dreams.”
🥁 It’s odd that I love when black people sing about Jesus, but I can’t take it when white people do it. Aretha? Hell yeah. The Killers? Nah, I’m good.
🥁 I am allergic to karaoke. I find it unbearable and ideally suited to people who hate music. My thought whenever I’m invited to any karaoke event: “I wish I too was tone deaf, but I hear the nails on the chalkboard. Enjoy your mutual hostage situation.”
🥁 Imagine the residuals Semisonic has collected on “Closing Time.” Conclusion: Songwriters should write more songs that serve a functional purpose for bars/restaurants. “We’re All Out of the Special,” “86 The Soup,” and/or “Time to Change the Keg” could be huge moneymakers.
🥁 “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” didn’t even mention AI or climate change. Good try, Michael Stipe.
🥁 I’m not sure how or why, but I feel like we need to blame Arcade Fire for polycules.
🥁 Thankful Bruce Springsteen wrote songs before the age of electric cars and e-bikes. This just doesn’t hit the same: 🎶 Just wrap your legs around this LCD display / And strap your hands ‘cross my lithium battery 🎶
🔌 This here joint is hand-rolled without AI. That takes time. If you rock with it, please support by going paid. You’ll get bonus stuff and archive access too. 🤘
🥁 How much people liked record scratching for a decade is rather baffling.
🥁 The big problem in music by decade:
1980’s: I love dancing but I’m tired of doing it by myself
1990’s: I’m a loser/creep/basket case
2000’s: I’m better off since you’ve been gone (you shoulda proposed)
2010’s: My lover is bad for me
2020’s: My pu**y is too wet a**
🥁 Shaboozey, Lil Nas X, and Beyonce are all culturally appropriating rednecks…but for some reason, we’re fine with it.
🥁 Kings of Leon was replaced by impostors before the release of that “your sex is on fire” song. It’s the only explanation.
🥁 “Be My Baby” got me wondering why the hell there aren’t more castanets in pop music.
🥁 Just found out Tupac's fam moved from Baltimore to Oakland for a better life. Sounds like the plot to some kinda Temu version of The Fresh Prince.
🥁 It’s a Clipse clips eclipse! (I’m watching TikToks about a legendary hip hop duo as the moon passes between the sun and earth.)
🥁 The rain washed me clean and I had no idea and now I demand Stevie Nicks give me a refund.
🥁 We need a term for people and things you respect but don’t actually enjoy. Maybe Zappa’d.
🥁 Love these lyrics (and the song):
🎶 We could go kick down some doors together
Stay out til morning sharp as knives
The new war will get you, it will not protect you
But I will be there with you when you turn out the light
Said I will be there with you when you turn out the light 🎶
“Paper Tiger”
Spoon ‧ 2002
🥁 Audio engineer is really straining the credibility of the word “engineer.” (Same with PhD and “doctor.”)
🥁 Bring back jazzercise, but really go for it with some Miles and Coltrane.
🥁 The curve of musical growth is starting off thinking Eric Clapton is the heart of Cream and then realizing it’s actually Ginger Baker until one day you conclude it’s really Jack Bruce.
🥁 Wedding bands do a great job at making rock n’ roll seem like cheerleading practice.
🥁 Friend asked me to describe Noah Kahan: I texted, “grocery store stomp-clap Male-r Swift for froyo girlies.” (Note: I've only ever heard one song by him but was pretty proud of Male-r Swift.)
🥁 Michael Jackson's drummer was named “Sugarfoot”!? Next level nickname. Also, the man’s cymbal game was on 🔥:
🥁 When he was asked what he knew at a later age that he wished he had known at 40 or even at 20, Leonard Cohen replied:
I think there is a wisdom appropriate to every age. I think there’s a 17-year-old wisdom, and a 40-year-old wisdom, and a 60-year-old wisdom. And I don’t think they necessarily have any rapport with one another. So I don’t necessarily have a sense that I blew anything that I could have avoided blowing. I think the problem is with vitality, with conserving the capacity to art and to be the custodian of this energy. I don’t know how much I would tell my 40-year-old self if I could resurrect him. The thing seems much more immediate, the sense of living on the front line of my own life has become very immediate, and the capacity to develop strategies, certainly the capacity to give advice, is very, very limited.
🥁 An oral history of the Empty Bottle. I lived across the street from this Chicago rock ‘n roll bar and let’s just say it played a big role in my 20’s. Here’s my old band Plastics Hi-Fi playing there:
Behind the paywall
Let’s get into The Beatles and The Stones…
