True confession time; this may shock you, coming from someone who has collected toys and used computers since grade school, but I have never, ever been thought of as “cool”. When I was a young man, I might have fantasized about being a “cool guy”, but the reality never clicked. I’m more of an awkward misfit, or a borderline “nerd”. It doesn’t bother me. I accept who I am, and my place in society.
Comments Off on Death of the Cool
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Worst Of All
It might be the weed, but this morning I was struck by the revelation that not only do I know every single word of a song I’ve utterly despised for over thirty years, but I think I don’t utterly despise it anymore.
Comments Off on I Feel Stupid And Contagious
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Picture yourself in the year 1982. You hear a song on the radio that you really like. The title is easy to remember, so you go to the record store at the shopping mall and ask the surly guy behind the counter about it. He hands you a ten-song LP which you pay seven bucks for.
Continue readingComments Off on Call of the West
Filed under Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
The origins of the line “It’s better to burn out than fade away” are somewhat muddy. It’s another version of “Play it again, Sam”; the words we’re most familiar with are actually a variation, and not a quote verbatim.
Continue readingComments Off on The Doors
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Comments Off on Neil Young
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Movies You Missed, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club
Comments Off on Liaison of the Spiders
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Zappalogy
Every so often, somebody inquires as to why the hell I call myself Matty Boy.
To which I affect my terrible Billy Bob Thornton impersonation, and reply, “would you ask Sonny Boy Williamson that?”
“Are you fucking with me?”
Since I’m referencing a radio debacle from years ago between Thornton and the guy from Moxy Fruvous, I receive blank looks in return. So let me clear the air a bit.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Uncategorized
When analyzing or criticizing animated feature films, it’s important to keep three factors in mind:
Production designer: the late great Michael Gross, who gave you National Lampoon Comics and the Ghostbusters logo (for a movie Ivan Reitman directed that you might have heard of).
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, O'Shloktoberfest, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
I have been a DEVO fan- a “DEVOtee”, if you will- for a very long time. 35 years ago, I was witnessing the video for “Whip It” for the first time, on the brand-new cable channel MTV. I knew a lot of spoiled kids.
When a good time turns around.
It’s not one of my favorite DEVO singles, but I appreciate its historical importance. Even today, it sounds truly weird. However, it came to be so closely linked with DEVO and their visual style, eventually it was the only song anyone brought up. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
From 1989 to 1992, all anyone knew of Nine Inch Nails was prettyhatemachine. Your opinion of that one album was your opinion of Nine Inch Nails.
Before Broken, NIN’s sophomore EP, you could be forgiven for thinking Trent Reznor was the heir apparent of electronic Goth, following the dark path of Joy Division and Depeche Mode. Reznor was the scion of a venerable HVAC company (founded 1888!), and probably spent much of his young life in the presence of gigantic, droning machines. “Industrial” was already wired into his veins.
For all your heating, cooling, and electro-goth needs!
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
BIG BOOK OF COMICS (SIGNED)
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