LISTED INFLUENCES: Iron Maiden. Soft Cell. The Ramons [sic].
UNLISTED INFLUENCES: cave drawings. extreme yawning competitions. flavorless chewing gum.
MEET THE MONSTERS: Ya know, I was wondering why this band was formed. Oh, wait. Here it is: “Formed as a response to mainstream punk pop-rock, Attack of the Beige is the leading edge of the musical warriors [sic] blade.” The musical warrior’s blade better watch the fuck out for overpowering adversaries such as room temperature margarine and damp rice paper.
I’m not really up on my geography (or for that matter, the science of dextral strike slips and thrust fault geometries) but after being exposed to Attack of the Beige’s atonal meanderings I can only assume that their hometown of Vancouver Island is a cultureless, backwards wasteland where up is down, stop means go and a TV show like “Two and a Half Men” is the barometer of contemporary intellectual humor. And I’m not slagging on “Two and a Half Men” just because I happen to be watching it while I type this. Oh, Ducky! You are a delight.
SONG ANALYSIS: The imperceptible guitar riffing, caterwaul vocals and floor tom ker-plunking that constitute “I Wopped [sic] Batmans [sic] Ass” is enough to make you swear off listening to sounds forever. Compared to this song, The Velvet Underground sanding their limbs down to raw stumps and playing ‘Heroin’ through blown out amps would sound like a Brazilian speed metal festival.
COMING TO YOUR TOWN: Nope.
BLOG ABOUT: “The freshest jam from Attack of the Beige is available >>>>> here <<<<<
AIDS WOLF
LISTED INFLUENCES: None listed.
UNLISTED INFLUENCES: AIDS. wolves. too many/not enough drugs.
MEET THE MONSTERS: “we are lifeforce warriors.” Of course you are.
Here’s the deal, kids. Pick up that guitar. Plug it in. Hit it. Make it go “ROOOOWWWRRRLLL!” Let it feedback a little. Now make it go, “CHUNK! CHURNK! KA-PLOW!” For credibility learn a bunch of theory and scales and jazz chords and then say, “Fuck that disciplined shit. I’m not playing that anymore. I’m an artist!” Get a drummer who can bang the shit out of a kit, a bass player who noodles & a singer (preferably an alcoholic woman) who can screech like a howler monkey with an ass full of mites and voila! You’ve got yourself a little art rock noise band. Grow beards. Stop showering. Become riddled with scabies. Rail against some sort of “establishment” or “industry” and then die penniless and unknown in the back of a condemned “artist space” with a needle full of brown-brown hanging out of your taint. Way to make your mark, Beefheart.
SONG ANALYSIS: When you have a real bad scrape that’s been healing for, like, three weeks and there’s that last thick slab of scab that is just absolutely refusing to crust up and heal by itself so you finally just yank that bastard off and then cry for a good long while. The way that feels is the way this band sounds, perhaps worse.
COMING TO YOUR TOWN: AIDS Wolf performs April, 7 2006 w/ The Nihilist Spasm Band, Made in Mexico and CPC Gangbangs at La Sala Rossa in Montreal.
BLOG ABOUT: N/A …come to think of it, they do sound a lot worse than the scab analogy. As a matter of fact, change “scab” to “pinky toe” and “yank[ing] that bastard off” to “repeatedly smashing with a dough roller.” That sounds about right.
CHEYANNE REBECCA
LISTED INFLUENCES: Celine Dion. Bon Jovi. Kelly Clarkson.
UNLISTED INFLUENCES: beer-flavored birth control. friends in low places. the timeless look of wearing overalls with one strap undone in that ever-so-carefree fashion.
MEET THE MONSTERS: Cheyanne is just your average, everyday honky-tonkin’, boot-scootin’ a cappella songstress from Ontario. I’m not sure if the songs on her site are original compositions or covers of country songs but they’re all brought to you in the sparsest of arrangements: only Cheyanne’s lilting desert flower voice free of musical accompaniment, pitch, tone, melody and talent.
SONG ANALYSIS: I swear to Christ, no matter how hard I try I can only make it about two bars into her meowing before my temples start to throb like I’m wearing a top hat made out of glowing hot charcoal briquettes. We’ll just pretend I listened to the one called “I’m Ready.” And this is where I would’ve made some lame, expected joke about how she is obviously nowhere near ready.
COMING TO YOUR TOWN: …to wait tables and make it in showbiz!
BLOG ABOUT: The lyrics to her latest hit “Walk On Bye, Bye” : “Life is a blur, its a struggle, its a high, its a joke…” And this is where I would’ve made another lame, predictable joke either about the part where she says “it’s a high” or about the part where she says “it’s a joke.” Maybe I would have done a combo and said something about it being a high joke. Or something. It’s only a matter of time before this stuff starts to read like the MadLibs you would do when you were a kid, only using words like ‘fart’ and ‘doodie.’
And, of course, “doodie-fart.”
24 DOORS OF TROUBLE
LISTED INFLUENCES: themselves.
UNLISTED INFLUENCES: GWAR, KISS, Insane Slipknot Posse
MEET THE MONSTERS: Roll call: Guy in devil mask? Check. Guy in hockey mask? Check. Guy in Gene Simmons mask? Check. Vampire dude? Check. Zombie World War II pilot? Say whuh?
SONG ANALYSIS: I always enjoy hearing the political opines of people who couldn’t be more out of touch with reality if you cut both their arms off. Whether it’s the sour grape ramblings of a homeless alcoholic too proud to enter a recovery program while he fishes damp cigarette butts out of a dumpster or the toothy, soulless grins of ivy league educated businessmen raping third world countries in the name of global trade and corporate progress, the world view of the inexplicably oblivious is always good for a laugh. 24 DOORS OF TROUBLE dissect the tribulations of the unfortunate with “Welfare Day,” a synopsis of social program abuse crammed into a minute and half of plunky double bass and gravely guitar distortion. Combining a narcotic grocery list chorus akin to Queens Of The Stone Age’s “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer” with the social consciousness of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s “1st of the Month,” 24 DOORS OF TROUBLE manage to somehow make a statement all their own. What that statement actually says escapes me because most of it sounds like a baby yak drowning in tar.
COMING TO YOUR TOWN: nuh-uh.
BLOG ABOUT: nope.
A PSYCHO VOYAGE THROUGH HELL
LISTED INFLUENCES: “Cornelius Agrippa. Alphonse Louis Constant (E. Levi) - for his absurd, yet wildly imaginitive 'Le Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie' (1855-1856). Black Sabbath.”
UNLISTED INFLUENCES: Anton LaVey. Grandpa Munster. Count Chocula.
MEET THE MONSTERS: Who would have thought that Montreal would serve as a mortal portal to the demon underworld, where the restless souls of unholy darkness convene to unleash a musical style that is wholly unique to this earthly plain. A PSYCHO VOYAGE THROUGH HELL, by their own account, “redefines heavy metal with a sound that is truly their own.” That is to say, they play really lame goth metal. Okay, that may be a little redundant. Goth metal by its very nature is quite lame. But I think it’s fair to say that heavy metal has been redefined enough times. All possible outcomes have been explored. If your band’s logo lettering is as pointy and sharp as the headstocks of your B.C. Rich guitars, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that what you’re doing has been done before.
SONG ANALYSIS: “Gates of Hell” combines the predictable riffage of sludge metal with the predictable fuzz of goth synthesizers. Add predictable drop D tuning with some predictably dark lyrics and predictable Muppet vocals and you’ve got a distinctive signature sound that is in no way reminiscent of Type O Negative.
COMING TO YOUR TOWN: Yeah, no.
BLOG ABOUT: Uh, no.
PAPERBOY
LISTED INFLUENCES: TUPAC. BIGGIE. DRE.
UNLISTED INFLUENCES: Brian Austin Green. K-Fed. David Faustino.
MEET THE MONSTERS: I’m not really sure if PAPERBOY is a group or a guy, but they have the linguistic flexibility of 50 Cent with lockjaw. It’s you run-o-the-mill thug rap profile: atrocious, unreadable page layout littered with intentionally misspelled words and unintentionally misspelled words, complete with pictures of drugs, guns and money. Bonus points for getting the guns, drugs and money all into one picture. These playas (and by “playas” I mean “panda-shaped white dudes with corrective lenses”) is straight outta Edmonton, Alberta, yo. Best recognize and come correct before they wreck your neck. Or some such playful folly.
SONG ANALYSIS: “What you know ‘bout-‘bout paper-paper-paperboy?” Personally, all I know about Paperboy is that it was a pretty bad ass arcade game back in the day. As for how that relates to what these ruffians are mumbling about, I have no earthly idea. It has a lot to do with breaking into people’s houses and stealing stuff that doesn’t belong to them and being all around not nice guys. Pudgy caucasion Canadians hustlin’ and keepin’ it reals, nigga! Welcome to the minstrel-dome.
COMING TO YOUR TOWN: I should really re-tool this format to account for the fact that most Monsters of Myspace don’t perform all that regularly.
BLOG ABOUT: I should really re-tool this format to account for the fact that most Monsters of Myspace are almost totally illiterate.
