Again

Stop calling Pete Wentz an "Emogul".

You're all (No, not ALL of you) sadly mistaken for thinking he's "emo". You cannot be "emo". Emo is a form of music. You cannot be "emo". You are a 'musician' or a 'drummer' or a 'bassist' or a 'gutiarist'. Or even a "rocker" or whatever. That's like saying you're "jazz". What the crap does that even mean?

Emo died in somewhere between 2000 and 2004. So I guess when Fugazi broke up. Or when The Promise Ring stopped making records. Fall Out Boy is and never will be an emo band

Seriously. /End rant.

We are now in 2009!

YEAH!

Check it out. Why So Blue, Panda Bear (the radio show which this blog is based off of) is now on Facebook.

Fuck that MySpace jawn, that's 2004 (as I check my MySpace....). Get on your FB and search for 'Why So Blue, Panda Bear'?. Become a fan! The show should be the only one. You'll know if it isn't, I guess. Get updates on show playlists, discuss questions of the week, read our versions of your horoscope, read our facts of the day, contribute to facts of the day, and everything else you want to know about shit we do on air! Also, I'll be submitted my recent favorite records and bands, you can get up on that in between my lax reviews and other rants and shit I waste your time with here.

Sexilicious.

Women. Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em. Right? Well, Tom Arnold said that, so it must be true (See True Romance. That movie with Arnold Schwartzenegger). Just kidding.

Lemme start over again.

Women. Can't live with them, can't live without them. Certainly the cliché that rules the American social structure. Mostly just my life. Well, it's more like 'Women, can't get them to love me, love every one of them'. Or something like that. Anyways, I digress. The music industry idolizes women in the startlet scene. Brittney, Christina, Janis, Stevie (Nicks, not Wonder, I know the difference, jerks), Grace, Ronnie (Spector), Diana, Janet (Jackson), etc. I don't know about you, but when I hear Diana Ross or Ronnie Spector or any of your various female vocalists of years gone by, I can't help but love everything about their vocal preformances. There's just something beautiful about it. And about them. In fact, the only one of those women I named above I've never been attracted to was Janis Joplin, but that may be because I really don't like her singing voice or her looks, but, this isn't about that. Okay, I lied. I never thought Brittney or Christina where that attractive either; nor Madonna. But whatever.

There's just something so tender about them and that something I can't help but fall in love with. Perhaps it's their natural haunting voice that woos me into submission, or perhaps the eyes they tote with that voice. Pure and beautiful. Maybe. Who knows, I've never met them and most of them I never will. But take someone a bit more contemporary and relevant to my audience (If I even have an audience for this stupid thing). Jenny Lewis. Zooey Deschanell. Natasha Kahn. Laura Marling. Gillian Welch. Lilly Allen. Kate Nash. Florence Welch. The latter of those names is probably lesser known, but, trust me, you'll want to check her out.

Let me begin by saying, I am completely and totally in love with Jenny Lewis. I don't really care if she's almost 10 years older than I. She's gorgeous. And she has one of the best voices in whatever the fuck scene you want to lump her solo work and Rilo Kiley in. I'm also totally in love with Zooey Deschanell. For the same reason. She & Him, her album with indie folk superstar M. Ward, is probably in my top 15 records of all time and one of my favorite of 2008. These two women, in particular, have everything that Ronnie and Diana had. They're gorgeous. They're on the cusp of your favorite fashion. They are your, well, my, pop culture. They are everything I love about music. They have beautifully crafted lyrics and perfectly written melodies. I remember when I saw Jenny Lewis, I had such a mind blowing time I never thought I'd be able to go to another show again (I did. Don't worry). Natasha Kahn, aka Bat For Lashes, is perfect elecro-new-wave brit pop for 2008 plus glitter. Her vocal rage is amazing and the music does nothing but compliment her arrangement. Kate Nash just flat out writes brilliant honest pop songs. I have no shame in admitting that. Lilly Allen to the same effect. Gillian Welch and Laura Marling are two almost unheard of folk singers who have beautiful, angelic voices. Florence Welch (aka Florence and the Machine) company the above in the same new-wave-y brilliance of Bat For Lashes.

I guess the whole point of this is to simply declare that the women of the music industry have won me over. Have they, you?

Livenation: You suck balls.

Dear Livenation,

You just charged me a 5 dollar surcharge on a cash purchase. What the fuck is that shit? Your shows are not nearly good enough to warrant that and your crappy venues are even worse. I'm pretty sure you're why people aren't spending the money on concert tickets and more independent promoters are doing better than you. And that is why you suck balls.

Sincerely,
Mitch.

Warped, Smarped.

Warped Tour is probably one of the most iconic "festivals" in the United States. Probably in the world. It happens every year, without fail, for the last, I think, 15 years now. That's pretty impressive. We have these other mediocre festivals like Lollapalooza and Bonarroo. But.... That shit is for kids who smoke weed and dance around naked to crappy hippy music. Just kidding. Good bands play at both Lollapalooza and Bonarroo, but they're not the same sort of ethos as Warped.

Warped Tour started in 1995, I think (So I would have been right with my 15 year guesstimate) and encompassed the idea of people coming together for one thing: music. Kevin Lyman, Warped founder, got the idea after working on some skate festivals and magazines, so, he took the idea and ran with it as a day for kids who skate and BMX to come, chill in scorching hot weather in the middle of fucking summer, and listen to some hot jamz by their favorite punk rawk bands. 1995 was punk as shit, featuring the Deftones, Guttermouth, Face to Face, and Quicksand. Eventually bands like Rancid, noFX, and Propaghandi joined (And left) the tour due to conflicts of interest between bands play and what have you.

In recent years, we've all heard the drama around noFX's Fat Mike and UnderOATH. Fat Mike called them a bunch of douches because of their stance on gay marriage and something of that douche tastic nature. Eventually they both said they were friends and had civilized discussions about it..... okay? Cool. I guess? Whatever. Anyways, the tour has decreased in "popularity" among the real punk dudes that got their start on the tour. Broadway Calls (A band on Adeline records, you know, that label Billie Jo from Green Day started with his wife, who are strangely enough kind of poppy?) said the following: "When there are 60 bands a day, and a majority of them are made up of either Christian jocks that play REALLY HEAVY MUSIC for Jesus, or pop bands with the only thing separating them from boy bands like Backstreet Boys are their dropped D tuned guitars hanging from their shoulders, it's hard to be comfortable. I look around, and quickly realize that the only difference between this and a huge frat party is that all these idiots play music. Bad music. Unfuckinglistenable music."

(This is where my op-ed starts.)

Those dudes are totally right. I went to Warped Tour last summer because there were some bands I genuinely wanted to see. But instead of it being a bunch of pop punk kids (yeah, I'm one of them. Fuck you, blink-182 and 90's Green Day will ALWAYS fucking rule. so will hit the light's first record. and new found glory. shut it) and aging punks, I had to nagivate a sea of prepubescent little girls in booty shorts with sideways haircuts. Oh. And the little 12 year old boys in girls pants and extra baggy t shirts and new era 51/50's that are a size too large with stupid ass scene haircuts and massive gauges. That's not cool. I mean, granted, yeah, I was there in a white shirt and skinny jeans, but let's face it.... There was never a day where I dressed like that. I never knew any girls in booty shorts either. Whatever, back on topic. It was discouraging to see people flood the stage for bands like All Time Low and The Maine. First off, All Time Low's mini-LP Put Up Or Shut Up was pretty decent in terms of 3rd wave pop punk. And The Maine's first EP The Way We Talk was catchy. I won't deny that. I like pop music, I grew up on doo-wop and motown. I have a soft spot for pop and I listen to it critically like I do all other forms of music. I know when it sucks and when it's not too bad. Whether it's written by some fat fuck in an office or the band themselves, it doesn't really matter. They did something right and it deserves some sort of merit.

But my point is this. There were bands who are really the roots and the bread and butter of Warped Tour, like The Bouncing Souls, Stick To Your Guns [Newer band, but same Boston straight edge punk-ness of some early bands], Pennywise, Bad Religion (Although, I don't think they played the '08 tour), and noFX (Same as Bad Religion, I don't think they played '08). That is the real Warped Tour. The addition of bands like The Academy Is..., Anberlin, Say Anything (I actually really like this band alot, so, I can't trash them), Katy Perry, Paramore, Relient K, and whoever else, is discouraging for kids like me. Who the fuck wants to see Katy Perry to begin with? It's not even like she's good to look at. And Paramore is fine, I mean, sure, cute 19 year old girl listens to hardcore (Every time I see pictures she's in some H20 or Madball shirt. And she married Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory who was in Shai Halud and Burry Your Dead. So). But Relient K? Really? Kids go to Warped Tour now to watch half assed bands play half assed songs that are autotuned. Anthony Ranieri of Bayside said something about this recently that I read on absolutepunk.net I think (lol at that since they rep all these mediocre bands quite frequently, but who am I to talk?). If you go to Warped Tour to see some shit ass band that the label "found" doens't make you punk. Take your gauges out, take off your sisters old jeans, and go back to private school.

Mixy Maxy Mishy Mashy.

The age old art of making someone elses words yours. It's been done since Shakespeare wrote fucking Romeo and Juliet. Alas, what window yonder light breaks? Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be 'morrow. We know the game well. And by we, I mostly mean those of us who are the heart torn, love sick, lovelorn, broken hearted ones. Mostly me. But hey, I know there's more of my contemporaries out there. Rob Gordon (John Cusack) said it the best, "People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss." (High Fidelity) Who knew that it was really the case? Sure as shit wasn't me.

A few months... And I mean like 5 months ago, on Valentines Day, I wrote a similar essay in which I talked about the importance of misery, song writing, and what makes a great song. Not a good song. But a great song. And now, we have a collection of these great songs. And a person who is not only great. But one such person who well read, intelligent, funny, and good looking to ice the proverbial cake. Now... We're fucked. We, the lovelorn, heartsick ones, now cannot proclaim our love/admiration. How can we? The last girl I asked out I somehow managed to choke the words out in between a flurry of deafening heart beats in my head and the radio blasting in the background. Some people write letters. Some people write songs. Others, and I've done this as well, make a mix tape.

Ahhh, yes, the mix tape. The black abyss of love and hurt. The only reason I'm even writing this fucking article is that I'm in the process of making one myself. For a girl (whoa, surprise, who knew!? me, jackass). There are rules. Very important rules. You have to start your tape with a killer, killer track. But if you make it too good, you're done for. Then you have to back it off because you don't want to say all you have to say by 6 minutes into side a of your tape.... Errr.... 6 minutes of your CD-R. Each "side" needs to end on a huge note. Everything needs to be fluid. It can't be thrown together. It's an art. It takes forever. It takes me a week or so to get a great first draft done. And that's even pushing it.

The mix tape defines that moment. That one single, solitary moments of all moments that we never seem to realize pass by until they're long gone. And once they're gone... They're totally gone. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? If you didn't, I'd be shocked, to be honest. I'm entirely entranced by this girl. She's all of the above (I mean like four paragraphs above) and therefore demands a tape made in her honor. I keep them all, as a memoir of love lost and gone. The memories are still there whether or not they ended well or not. Live and learn.

The Smiths were never really a band I believed I truly liked until I received my high school diploma and then it all suddenly made sense. There's something beautifully haunting about Morrissey's voice as he croons you into your sweet wanna-be-veganism/celibacy. Yes, Morrissey was celibate for a short period of time. You can't write songs about heart break, misery, and sex if you're celibate. You have no frame of reference for those things other that in the past and let's face it...... Those memories are always going to be distorted. Or so science says. But fuck science, that shit is for the birds, dudebroski.

I was in love with the Smiths a few months ago (now closer to a year) and I had lost my touch until I heard the recent cover (Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want) that Zooey Deschancel destroys (Because her voice is that of a seraph [Deal with the vocab]). I should also note that M. Ward, her partner in indie-folk stardom/indie-folk star of his own fame, totally destroys Marr's guitar parts. The song is made from being the typical Manchester pop-rock/new-wave-y upbeat jangle to being hauntingly empty; drenched in reverb and delay. To wrap up this little She & Him promo (As I await, along with the legion of fans they have farmed for themselves), Zooey and M. (errr, Matt, but does anyone call him Matt?), have an amazing sense for what they need to do to a cover song to really make it great (See the Vol. 1 covers of Smokey Robinson's 'You Really Got A Hold On Me' and The Beatles' 'I Should Have Known Better').

Now, we all know the Smiths were all over the world for the brief history they had as a band (It would seem that many great bands only last a few years. With the exceptions of "great" [Via context] bands like the Rolling Stones, etc [Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that music, but the style is static and it sounds dated now], great music occurs in short bursts. The Smiths were around from 1982 through 1987 and released a mere 4 albums (Including like some 19 singles and a few random non LP occurances). That's far less than even a band like The Beatles (Who probably a had a greater effect on society due to years active and the state of the music industry then), but still leaves me wondering how a band who released four records would be able to really jump start a scene that would give birth, in my opinion, to the early roots of bands like The Promise Ring. Perhaps not greatly, but, I can see where people, like The Promise Ring's Davey Von Bohlen, would and could pull influence from.

None the less, I guess, The Smiths rule.