Feeling really Sentimental about this Bus.

Le Tigre were out shopping one day and bumped into Quasi. They decided to make music together and went and got Devo to produce their songs. None of this was ever made known to the public, partially because it didn't really happen and is just being used as an introductory description but mostly because it all took place over in Japan in 1997. And oh man. It went right the fuck off.

Sentimental Bus was a band that I fucking idolised, because they hit cute, went through peppy and fell out the other side in a hit of speed right into your eyeballs. It was impossible to feel shit when listening to their stuff and as I came across them when I was 16 and just getting used to angst, I really put them through their paces. It's impossible.

I can't even remember what got me onto them. I think I found them in about three different places at once; I had that friend who listened to nothing but JPop. I was exploring music for the first time really with the help of Audiogalaxy. I played a lot of the game Guitar Freaks down at the local crappy arcade which had just come out with a new edition at the time, including the Sentimental Bus song Sunny Day Sunday. I don't know which came first but I thank it so much.

They were a two piece duo with about fifteen other people they could pull in for artistic help in recording and musicmaking. I'm pretty sure they also existed on a slightly slower timestream than us, as the music they did in fact make went at a million miles an hour and blew your brains out. I've got a feeling the original recordings are being held in some kind of scientific research facility, away from our prying molecules - the two timestreams colliding could probably end the universe. That's how cool Sentimental Bus are.

As a thoroughly depressing note, I lost their music over the years and now, when searching back, I can't find it anywhere on the internet at all. Since their breakup in December 2000, Sentimental Bus are all but lost to time but I swear I'll make sure everybody who has ever seen this text gets a copy of their shit when I eventually track it down. I'm not above breaking the law just this once. They're that good. I just wish my brief metal interlude in life hadn't made me decide to delete and break everything that wasn't metal. That, that was a big mistake.




Speaking of metal, go to Youtube and search for DethKlok. Watch it. It's a new cartoon on Adult Swim about the greatest metal band in the history of the universe. It's really fucking good. This is metal. For fish.

From First To Last and the Worst Song Ever.

I know I mentioned them once, but I really have to do an update now that I've been getting my hear on. From First To Last are a fantastic post-hardcore/goth/punk rock group that I demand anybody who likes their angry music to have some musical depth listen to.

I really find it hard to talk about this band, even though I love them so hard just from listening to their one album Heroine. It's exactly what I want out of a post-hardcore group; people who really know how to play their instruments chucking some near experimental sounds over the top of the noises they make, singing about some really near-twisted things. Like the track "...And We All Have A Hell" which, to me, sounds like it's about a guy who wants a girl so bad he's almost willing to kidnap and rape her. I don't emphasise with the lyrics, I just like really freaked up songs.

'sides, most people I talk to can't understand what they're saying anyway.

Actually, the lyrics are one of the things I really love about post-hardcore in general. Basically every band tries to go beyond "deep" and jumps into the realm of the poetic, or even further to hit avant garde. Metaphors and symbolism jump out of everything. Yet half the listeners will never even notice this. One of my favourite groups in the universe do this a fucking lot - the Blood Brothers. I'll admit that From First To Last don't quite get as out there as "Bulimic rainbows vomit what! Burn, Piano Island, Burn!" but hey. They still have stuff like "Let's starve down to the bone, we're looking better boney // Who needs figure anyway?" which seems to be just that bit more poignant. And they have great song titles. That line in particular is from the song "World War Me." World War Me. I just think it has a great ring to it okay sheesh.

Anyway. From First To Last. Track down the album Heroine. Do it now. Whalley compels you.


On a non-connected note, welcome to The Worst Song Ever. I got linked by a friend to what we're guessing is some Counterstrike-playing kid's DJ efforts. Kudos to him, he's a great DJ. The actual mixing is top-notch. I refuse to believe it's professional though, because what professional DJ would make a six minute long mix of some of the "best" that Nu-Metal had to offer? I really, really, really love to hate this track. It's just a great Crazy Town/Linkin Park/Cypress Hill/Disturbed/god what mix of some really, really awful bits of sound. And you'll listen all the way through. You have to.

It's strange - my biggest complaint is that it doesn't go for longer. There's so much more awful shit that could go into that.

Describing Bands Obtusely

The forums over at Something Awful often have a thread running called "Describing Bands Obtusely" where people, well, describe bands obtusely. I've been having a hectic and shithouse week hence the lack of updates, so I'm just going to put one together of all the ones I put into those threads, and holy hell did I put a lot in! Enjoy, or perish in obscurity!

Stars - Breakups through rose tinted glasses while cuddling your doona and drinking a cup of hot chocolate with too many marshmellows in it as it lightly rains on your window on a sunny winter day.

Lords of Acid - This girl (not that band) just opened a club. Unlike everywhere else you'll see this kind of art, here it fits.

HORSE the Band - Your Nintendo is pissed.

Elliot Smith - Motivation for scientists to cure depression.

Panic! At The Disco - Alien Ant Farm and Taking Back Sunday are having a fight in a music store built on a FUTURE POWER PLANT; through some strange coincidence they've both chosen throwing Fall Out Boy remixes burned onto shurikens at each other.

Kåre and the Cavemen - A montage of the best 1970s cop chases ever is being played on a TV in the middle of an orgy.

Magyar Posse - Ghosts, vampires, dead soldiers and werewolves all got together one day and as if nature had been building itself up to this point, music began from everywhere.

Jens Leckman's happy sounding stuff - You're waking up in the morning to that special someone who you've had a crush on your whole life, and they're wearing a really goofy shirt and handing you a perfect mug of coffee in a Chewbacca cup. Right as the two of you hug, a burst of sunlight comes through the window to reveal some sparrows twittering around on the dew-covered tree outside.

Jens Leckman's sadder sounding stuff - :( incarnate.

65daysofstatic - Someone hooked Explosions In The Sky's composer up with some nifty effects pedals then fired 2/3rds of the band. He decided to fake them back in with Reason.

Luca Turilli - They made a song named 'The Ancient Forest Of Elves' sound exactly like the name implies, yet you somehow still want to listen all the way through.

Under Byen - What Bjork was subconsciously trying to achieve with Homogenic.

Kare and the Cavemen - A montage of the best 1970s cop chases ever is being played on a TV in the middle of an orgy.

Reel Big Fish - You've just met the most popular, fun-loving and happy guy you've ever even heard of, and he's painted the faces of every girl he ever loved on a bunch of insects around him. He's got the biggest fucking grin on his face as he slowly but surely pulls every appendage off each one individually. He asks you if you want a beer and if you wanna watch the game, but he's still pulling. You decide to ignore what he's doing and just have fun.

Ookla the Mok - The Presidents of the United States of America went down their local comic shop and bumped into Ben Folds. They decided to go to a standup comedy show together and freebased some awesome in the VIP room.

Jack Off Jill - That cute yet goth girl from high school just sent you an email to go see her latest show at a seedy bar. You go there and she's singing and you're not sure what it's about, but you suddenly make eye contact with her and she remembers that time you snuck up behind her and cut the ribbons holding her corset together right as she's about to enter a chorus.

Public Enemy - The best the early 90s had to offer in terms of rap artists got together and planned out exactly whose asses they are going to kick, then dropped the list into a brass music store above a hiphop club. You pick the list up from the ground only to read the words "Each and every single person on this godforsaken planet."

Joe Jackson - That nerd nobody disliked in high school, the one who was undoubtedly a dork but could make you laugh? He just started a jazz group and made sure to down two entire bottles of scotch before grabbing the microphone.

Yoshida Brothers - The backstory of those two musical assassins in Kung Fu Hustle and their adventures fighting around the world.

William Shatner - He sounds EXACTLY what he looks like. And that is awesome.

Bernard Fanning - Powderfinger sans anything interesting.

Chastisement - The gods of melodic death metal got together and discussed amongst themselves how to show themselves to the world. This was their band.

Flogging Molly - The soundtrack to getting pissed down at Gilhooley's. Or maybe Irish Murphy's. Or possibly O'Dooley's. Really, any bar with a shamrock in the logo.

Genitorturers - It's Marilyn Manson, but with an actual female. And some serious sex appeal.

Mars Volta - The soundtrack to a pissed-off fractal.



Hoo! That's all from me for now, as I get my ass in gear, listen to this band From First To Last that a friend says I'd really like and consider writing something that isn't just a rehash of things I've already said! I feel bad for not updating this. I'm sorry. Hugs and such to you.

(I should add - none of these are new! I haven't written ones for a whole bunch of bands. I am SORRY you can't hear me pseudointellectually masturbating about songs!)