4.26.2013

A review of David Bowie's "Buddha of Suburbia"






















When I was in college, they re-released all of Bowie's albums. It was great; some of the harder to find stuff was now back in print and, literally , spilling off the shelves at the Tower Records two blocks away from my dorm.
Sadly, I was restricted from buying all twenty or so by a four year bout of impecuniousness, so, at times, I may have turned to the swollen teat of the burgeoning internet file sharing "trend". And one album that I kept seeing there but not on the shelves was Buddha of Suburbia. So, I downloaded it but never actually listened to it; it just kept falling through the cracks or not registering with me...
 Turns out, it wasn't just me; a lot of people seemed to have missed this even though it's considered a full on David Bowie album, and a very interesting one at that.
Once again, while in Rough Trade and having not found any Coil, I began to look for stuff that might have not made its way to the U.S. or, at least, U.K. versions of U.S. stuff as sometimes there's something on one that's not on the other. Among other strange gems in their Bowie section was this.

Buddha came out in 1994, bridging the gap (sonically and chronologically) between the painfully late 80's sound of (most of) Black Tie, White Noise in 1993 and the mind bending concept album 1. Outside in 1995. I always wondered what the hell had happened between those two albums, and now I know.
Of the elements held over from Black Tie are some of the awful 90's programming and that shitty and maddening saxophone that I like to think of  as "sweaty sax"*. You know what I mean; it can only be played under a streetlight or on a fire escape, at night, in the summer, while covered in sweat. It's this programming and sax that were the downfall of that album and what make some of Buddha unlistenable. Tracks like "South Horizon" and "Bleed Like A Craze, Dad" are fairly soaked in these anachronistic eye-stabbers and reek of crusty hair gel, while other tracks are so far from this...the bright and soaring "Dead Against It" and the rock solid, 90's Bowie radio-ready title track.
There's also the odd and almost experimental tracks such as "The Mysteries", which is mostly just a soft piano being played in what sounds like a sonic garden, and "Ian Fish U.K. Heir", which is basically just some Eno-esque textured silence.
Also, "Sex and The Church"...which...is a song by David Bowie from his album, Buddha of Suburbia.**

As an album, the whole thing feels a bit patchwork with no real unified sound or theme tying things together. Bowie said it was written and recorded in six days, which I completely believe.
The highs are acceptably high, but the lows are waaay low.
Whatever.
It's Bowie.
Some of it's good, some of it's bad, all of it's Bowie.





* Think of the sax from the opening of Red Shoe Diaries...

** Yeah.

4.22.2013

The Honeymoon Begins!

Uh.
Okay.

3/30/13
Woke after five hours of sleep to take a flight landing us in Heathrow Airport at around nine or so in the evening.
Proceeded to figure out the Underground* then took a cab from the station to a location about 100 yards away from our "flat"**, which instantly shattered my certainty that all London cabbies always know where everything is always forever because this son of a whore TOLD US WE WERE THERE AND WE WERE NOT. After ten minutes standing in the fucking freezing cold, the guy we were supposed to meet came down and found us, literally, 100 yards away (as the crow flies). Now, before you open your mouth and feel like a smug fuck, the only sign anywhere was one for the Basil Hume memorial hedge.
Which is not recognized by Google.
Eventually, we got upstairs and took in our place (which you can see here), then realized we were starving and it was almost midnight on Easter weekend.
After some screaming, we got a Chinese food place to deliver to us; the food cost $60 but was worth $12. It was also, not counting food in and around airports, the worst meal of our trip.
Then.
Sleep.

3/31/13
The Oxford-Cambridge Goat Race.
The Oxford-Cambridge Goat Race.
At which Christina and I took second and third runners up for Best Dressed.
Then Wuwo Magazine took our picture.


Sadly, they did not capture the splendor of Chris' fuzzy goat pants, which were the main reason she took second place.
After this odd and wonderful romp, we met up with our old Fordham chum, Ginny, who is as magical and awesome as ever. We had dinner at a Mexican place called Barrio East where I had a drink which was basically de lime in da coconut.
Boat of 'em which I drank up.
Ginny was sweet enough to patiently answered all of our British questions.
Apparently, "keep left" is just a suggestion.
Hm.

4/1/13
For April Fools' Day***, Chris and I had tea at the Langham Hotel, where, less than a minute after sitting down, I knocked a very old and expensive teapot full of roses to the floor, shattering it. Christina insists it was a total punk rock move in the style of Johnny Rotten , while I maintain that I was just too big for their tiny, tiny tea room table.
This was yet another gastronomic triumph.




Sluggish and blinking, we were then picked up in the lobby of the Langham by Akin, our private, chauffeured James Bond Tour guide. He introduced us to Malcolm, our Welsh driver and we were off.
I have to stop for a moment and give massive props to my punk, who is not nearly as into Bond as I am, but who found the tour a great way to see London.
While the tour itself was a bit sparse ("Check out the exterior of this building which was used for five seconds as an establishing shot!" and "Hey! Does that doorway look familiar to you...?!") and less nerdy than I had hoped, it really was great.
We did get to see MI6, which was awesome.



We were let out across the street from Hyde Park, so we walked around a bit before Chris went to some shops, me in tow, grumbling and whining all the way. After this, we had an astoundingly delicious roast mutton meal at the Jugged Hare, complete with sumptuous veggies and cauliflower cheese. I think it was at this point when I realized that people who say British food is bad are uninformed assholes who have never had British food.
Then, we went to our local pub (thirty feet from our front door), The Artillery Arms, and had a pint.****
Of cider.
BUT I had a pint in a pub.
And, hey, all you shitty, dark-because-it's-cool-for-a-bar-to-be-dark, so-loud-it's-pointless-to-talk-so-you-just-keep-drinking-until-you're-depressed-or-horny-enough-to-leave-and-make-a-horrible-mistake, cluttered-with-fuckheads-who-totally-dig-the-bar-scene-because-they're-too-unoriginal-to-think-of-something-better-to-do bars in New York City: if you took a lesson from the British pub scene...you might see me out a little more often.
Though probably not.

4/2/13
Woke up bright and early and took a train***** to Wales (Cardiff Bay to be exact) to check out the Doctor Who Experience, where I accidentally dressed like the 9th Doctor.



First, Wales (specifically Cardiff): this place and its crazy, fucking language was completely inspiration for every horror H.P. Lovecraft ever conjured up. Welsh is a handful of scattered vowels away from Cthuvian. Plus, down by the water, there were unassuming-and-therefore-terrifying churches and carvings in stone of chimeras and other such tentacular, water-dwelling things...shit...just...okay, don't be anywhere near R'lyeh, I mean...Cardiff when the end comes, because when Cthulhu wakes up, he is going to be hungry.
Second, I have never been more aware of the fact that Doctor Who is a children's show that at this place. Yes, well-written at times and fifty years old, but, still, a kid's show. A show designed for children.
But the actual exhibit was pretty cool.



After spending too much time and money in the Doctor Who Experience shop, we found a place that looked non-touristy but, apparently, was actually pretty touristy, and ate lunch there.
I had my first fish and chips and, as I am half-British, enjoyed them in the proper fashion by drowning them in malt vinegar. Excellent, excellent stuff.
This happened there as well.



At this point, Chris and I were kind of done with Cardiff, but still had about three hours before our train. Could we have just, you know, gotten on a earlier train? Well, sure...by tripling the price of our tickets.
So, we decided to check out the heart of Cardiff...which stops beating at about 5:30.
Shops, restaurants, pubs, malls, practically everything was locked up by six o'clock on a Tuesday evening.
We managed to slip into Spillers Records and discovered that the oldest record store in the UK only has about 100 albums, fifty on CD and fifty on vinyls, in the whole place.
I asked for the new Bowie and was told they had none, but Chris was able to pick up the new Nick Cave.
Then they were closed.
Here is where I shall introduce the Search for Coil into the mix.
In the months leading up to the honeymoon, I have been listening to and reviewing one Coil album per week and posting them here. I called it the Coil Review Project. As they were a British band, I had this totally crazy idea that I would be able to actually purchase some fucking Coil while I was in Britain. Yes, I could go online right now and spend thousands (seriously) on most of their discography, but, fuck that. What's the fun in that? The United States is, sadly, not a place where we give a shit about music anymore; not physically at least. It's all downloads and oh shut up you old fuck.
Never mind.
I wanted the excitement of walking into a cool record shop in the UK, flipping like a madman thought hundreds of records that only have the letter "C" in common, and finding a plethora of forgotten Coil gems.
This did not happen at Spillers.
Anyway, somehow, we found a pub which was open and I tried my very first sticky toffee pudding...which was too sweet for me.
And, yes, a part of me died at the realization that something could actually be too sweet for me.
But, while dejected at Spillers, I asked the woman behind the counter if there were any other music stores in Cardiff. She said there was an HMV.
Another aside: if anyone remembers HMVs from when they had locations in New York City, then you'll understand my hope and excitement. Next to Tower Records and the sub-basement of the Virgin Megastore, HMV was the place to find shit you would never find anywhere else in New York.
And this one was OPEN.
But, they had no fucking clue what Coil was or how to get it, so I just bought the new Bowie album and sulked all the way back to the train station...where we still had another hour to wait for our train.
We got home and decided that today had been way too expensive for what we had gotten in return.

4/3/13
While the first three days of our trip had been lousy with plans, the next few were left open.
No fucking trains to places.
On the docket for today was lunch at one of the two gluten and dairy free fish and chip shops in all of London, a place called Oliver's Fish & Chips. Aside from the mushy peas (which they did with mint) and the deep fried Mars bar (my first; a disappointment and something I'll not bother with again), it was another amazing meal.
Then, Chris and I did some more Coil Hunting...which is to say I dragged her along while I spent time on our honeymoon looking for music that I have already heard and only have a desire to own out of some strange feeling that I cannot define.
Yeah, that's what I meant.
Then this happened:


We hit a place called Flash Back where I found what turned out to be the one and only Coil album in both Britain and France: a first pressing of the band second album, Horse Rotorvator.
But I didn't know that at the time. Rather than being sated by this victory, I was made ravenous, asking for more record stores MORE!
After Flash Back, we walked a bit further down Essex Road and hit Haggle which had no Coil.
We returned to our flat and waddled around for a bit before setting out to meet the wonderful Jeannie and Rich at the Comedy Store to see some of the best improv any of us had ever seen. Even though the players were just following the typical improv formulas we've seen dozens of times, the quality of the comedians and their rapport with one another was utterly unmatched by anything I have ever seen.
Afterwards, Jeannie and Rich took us to Byron, a really awesome burger chain that had both style and great food.
Holy fuck.
What a burger.

4/4/13
On Thursday, we had nothing planned until dinner with Ginny, Jeannie and Rich at the Jugged Hare******, so Chris and I wandered around Shoreditch ("the Williamsburgh of London"), me looking for Coil, Christina looking for cool kicks and graffiti. We discovered that two of the three records stores she had found mentioned in an article from two years earlier were closed, the third, Rough Trade, was not.
And, while they didn't have any Coil "at the moment", they did have four fucking copies of This Immortal Coil's The Dark Age of Love, which, fucking get this, is a selection of Coil covers by some completely random artists (the most well-known among the group is Bonnie "Prince" Billy...which should tell you something).
Four copies.
Dejected and angry at this cosmic cock slap, I spent another forty five minutes in the store buying things I had either already heard and had never bothered to purchase (Bowie's Buddha of Suburbia) or straight up shit that I have already heard and owned and fuck you for not having any Coil, Rough Trade, now take my money as punishment (Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth !!!with 2 UK bonus tracks!!! and the limited edition, 12-fold, foil packaged Atoms For Peace album...neither of which has been opened or will be).
Then, as Chris and I were feeling peckish and had yet to have any Indian food (another must given to us by both Jeannie AND Ginny) and were on Brick Lane, we had some Indian food. I had only eaten Indian food once, at a place that was supposed to be good but ended up tasting like almost nothing at all. This place (Sheba) nailed it, although Chris said there is much better to be had.
Challenge accepted.
An hour or so later, we met with Jeannie and Rich for dinner where I ate Scottish salmon.
Yes, it was wearing a kilt.
And under the kilt?
Yur mutter's lepstack.
After dinner, Richard took us to our first Tesco.
Which was fucking awesome.
This is what I was looking forward to, seeing all the weird little differences between our shitty connivance stores and Britians' shitty little connivance stores.
Some quick notes:
  • Their candy bar names are just as pointless and silly as ours (Wispa, Yorkie, Twirl)
  • Prawn Cocktail crisps are fucking awesome, with Pringles winning it all for me.
  • Hobnobs are the shit.
  • Jaffa Cake are shit...I determined this after eating about three dozen.
Aside from solid junk food, we also picked up some liquid junk food in the form of cider; kiwi-strawberry for me! Cheers, barkeep! *saucy wink!*
Since this was a school night for them, Jeannie and Richard left shortly after.

4/5/13
Our last day in London was another light one, with only tea at Brown's Hotel on the docket. Sadly, it did not live up to the standard set by the Langham; partly because the tea and food was not as intriguing and delicious, and partly because our "tea sommelier"******* was an asshole.
After our let down of a tea service, we went to Fortnum & Mason where I got two huge tins of PURE Earl Gray and Chris got some fruits that had been drained of their juice and then filled with liquid sugar...a startling reversal, is it not?
Next, we made a horrible decision and visited Cool Britannia, which is as if all the touristy shit in all of New York City were under one roof...but, god damn it we wanted those cool Underground shirts.
While I like the subterranean mass transit system in New York more than both Paris and London, the graphic design of London's wins, hands down.
Once we had settled on Underground shirts (we both really wanted Mind The Gap shirts but couldn't find them in the size/style we wanted), I made my own horrible decision to drag Chris too even more record stores, none of which had shit.
Christina was beginning to get annoyed...
We had an early morning coming tomorrow, so we decided to get home and get things all packed up. On the way there, I picked up a steak and stilton pie (my first pie of the trip...idiot that I am) from a pie shop which was astonishingly delicious and which I pooped out in a hurry about two hours later, no fuss, no muss, no bother.
We then had a meal cobbled together from the food we'd accrued over the week (a little soup, some Jaffa Cakes, a hobnob or four...) and then, sleep.

4/6/13
Early, early, early morning goodbye to our London flat and then off to Paddington Station to catch our train to Dartmoor.
Once again: fuck trains.
We arrived at some point in the afternoon and Chris picked up our rental car while I played with an excellent, if slightly underfed dog that lived (and worked?) at the rental place.
She instructed me to say "left hand lane" at every turn and intersection. I asked if screaming "left hand lane" was an acceptable substitute and she said that it was not.
Marriage, am I right?
Eventually, we found our way to Haberton and our remarkable little cottage.
CHECK IT OUT.
Each of the rooms had adorable names like the Little Broderick (Chris' room), the Perky Adelade (my room) and the Poop Chute (neither of us went in that room). We met the caretaker who was just delightful and who had set out a wonderful little tea for us which we gobbled up.
We then took a wander around Haberton which was just absolutely beautiful in that old-abandoned-English-countryside-village-dominated-by-a-fucking-huge-ancient-church-and-accompanying-graveyard way.
We went to the one restaurant in town (where we had reservations for dinner) and asked two gentlemen who might have been fucking with us because we were a.) "not frum 'round 'ere'" and/or b.) Americans where the local post office was where one could get farm fresh eggs. They said it was "a nice, twenty minute walk".
So we set out on our "nice, twenty minute walk" and, after thirty minutes (twenty or so of which were spent on bucolic, single-lane roads bordered by pastures teeming with sheep and cows), found ourselves on the side of the English countryside equivalent of a super highway, unable to go any further without dying. The post office (and its farm fresh eggs) was not in sight.
So, hungry and sweating and whining (me, not her. How the fuck does she put up with me? It is drugs?), we returned home and went to dinner.
The restaurant was pitch fucking black and crowded with the band, who were tuning up, loudly and, for all you that know how much I love coming from silent daylight into dark, small, loud spaces...well, anyway.
Long story short: the place was packed after a few hours (as it was the only place to eat within what seemed like fifty miles) and we both had really excellent meals.
We returned home and Christina then became afraid of monsters outside, so, I was happy to remind her that as long as she didn't wander off the path while singing Santa Lucia, that she wouldn't get mauled by a werewolf. This...seemed not to help.

Thus ended the first week of our honeymoon.
Our prognosis: so far, so good.
Next up: the second week of our honeymoon; which started off with the lowest point one could imagine...
Stay tuned!!!!!!!







* Read: I sullenly followed and watched as Christina miraculously figured out the cum-soaked mirkin which is the London Underground on the night before Easter fucking Sunday.

** Because "apartment" just sounds so silly, am I right?!

*** Which, in the UK, is called First of April St. Jolly Wank Jubs Day

**** To be frank, there was a cemetery directly across the street from our pub but...anyone seen "Shaun of the Dead"...? Winchester...

***** Fuck trains. I don't care how easy and plentiful and affordable they are in Europe. There are just another excuse to get me in a tiny, tiny place where I am punished for being tall and have to be quiet and happy about the fact that I'm horribly uncomfortable for a long period of time. Fuck them. In the caboose.

****** The fact that we were only in the country for a week yet went to the same place twice should give you an idea of just how good the food was.

******* Which is, apparently, a real thing...no matter how much I giggled at him.

4.19.2013

A review of The Flaming Lips' "The Terror"






















I've only ever liked one album by Flaming Lips, and that's Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.
Chris and I picked their new one up based on some awesome song that was playing in a music store in London and I just had a chance to listen to the whole thing.
I still only like one Flaming Lips album.

To start, I will say this: this album should NOT have come out in April; it should have been a winter release...a nuclear winter release.
The album opens with "Look...The Sun Is Rising", which has a great, hard, crunchy drum beat and the first few tracks sound like they're being played through filthy iron filings (the whole album really), which is great; an excellent texture, scummy and fuzzy and dirty...but then...nothing happens.
On the fourth track, "You Lust", a lot of nothing happens (for about thirteen minutes) and I almost lost my patience and gave the whole thing up; I was about halfway through the album and still waiting for something to kick in. I understand subtlety. But I also understand flatness. And a filthy-iron-filing-covered flatness is still flatness.
There is some interesting stuff on "Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die"* and "Turning Violet", but nothing else really grabs me. The most dynamic song on the album isn't really, technically, on the album; it's called "The Sun Blows Up Today" and it's on a 3" CD which came in the same case as the album, and even that's only dynamic for a minute or two before it begins to repeat itself.
I will say that, after experiencing The Terror, the second track on the CD-ette, a cover of "All You Need Is Love" is absolutely welcomed...if a bit spooky.

I don't know. I'm sure everyone else in the world will find this epic and amazing and sing its praises until I feel (more so) like a worthless, artless shitbag, but, well, I'm just not in that camp. I mean, they nailed the mood and did a great job of constantly reminding us that the sun is, ostensibly, just a huge bomb that has yet to detonate, but, yeah, no, sorry.
I'll give it another try...probably...before the sun explodes.





* There's lots of really, really dark lyrics to match the sound, almost to the point of parody; as is the case on "Always There...In Our Hearts".

4.18.2013

A review of John Grant's "Pale Green Ghosts"














This was plastered all over the wall of Rough Trade East in London, so, Chris bought it. We put it in on our drive to Chagford and, although distracted by the terror of our first time driving in the UK, we could definitely tell there was something cool going on here. Once my life was out of immediate danger, I spent a little more time with it and I'm very glad I did.
Because it good.
It reeeeeal good.

One of the first things that struck me was how much this guy sounds like both Stephin Merritt (of Magnetic Fields) and John McCrea (of Cake)*. When he's lower, the former and when he's higher the latter, but also in the tone of his lyrics. He's bitter and sarcastic and hurt and hopeful and fucking angry. The barely restrained fury on some of these tracks is truly startling. You can hear his gritted teeth... He may not have had enough just yet, but he is three straws away. Or, he's utterly defeated and simply asking why. Why did you do this? Why would you do this? The innate gravity in his voice makes these darker moments pitch back while adding a razor sharp bite to the more ironic or whimsical lyrics.
The music (for the most part) matches the dark and sparse vocals. It feels very somber. Sometimes. Other times, for instance, on "New Age Sensitive Guy" and "Ernest Borgnine", it's practically club music. "Sensitive Guy" is just the oddest damn song on here. Is "somber disco" a genre?
Oh, and, Sinade O'Connor is on about a third of the album, doing backing vocals.
What?
And she sounds great.
Yeah, maybe they had to lower her volume a bit, but, however it happened, she really adds a lot; juxtaposing nicely with Grant's smug/furious growl.
Along with all that sparseness, there are some nice surprises; the occasional string arrangements, piano and saxophone really do a lot of fill in the cold, electric gaps with which he's littered his album.
I'd say the majority of this album is rock solid, from the snark and swagger of "GMF" to the heartfelt and pleading "Why Don't You Love Me Anymore?" to the tearjerking "It Gets Better" anthem "Glacier" (which never gets too sentimental thanks to Grant's vitriol and dry humor)...actually, pretty much everything except the title track, "Black Belt" and "Vietnam" really stand out as excellent for me.

This was a really great find and reinvigorates my belief that there is still amazing music out there, if you're willing to just randomly pick up an album in a record store in London.
Now, go check out John Grant. I've made it even easier for you to do so by including links to some of the choiceier tracks from Pale Green Ghosts.
Dig them.

"GMF"
"Why Don't You Love Me Anymore?"
"Sensitive New Age Guy"
"Ernest Bogrnine"
"Glacier"





* But more resonant and sonorous than them both.

4.05.2013

The Coil Review Project: Wrap Up

Twenty albums (give or take), twenty weeks (give or take), a myriad of thoughts and emotions.
The Coil Review Project is, finally, over.

I have never experienced a band this diverse in their sound. Yeah, a band will try something new or maybe even reinvent themselves, but, if it works at all, it always feels forced or too self aware. With Coil...I had, literally, no idea what was going to happen at the beginning of each album. Of course, like any band that exists for such a long time, there are commonalities, but the way these common threads manifest themselves was, so often, shockingly different.
The light, (their exploration and understanding of) the dark, the spirituality, the sacrilege, the screaming, the silence, the depth...
The utter disregard for the listener.
But never lazy*. It was always carefully orchestrated disdain, more like a direct challenge: we dare you to listen to this, to survive and maybe attempt to understand this.
Or, maybe I'm completely off the target here; maybe the audience wasn't even considered. Maybe they were just creating.
Less "we dare you" and more "oh, sfomeone else is hearing this? Hm."
Did some of their work get self indulgent?
Who can really say?
If they were only making this for themselves, can that even happen?
Perhaps if I get Danny Hyde on my podcast (digressive_obscenity), I can ask him.

Then there's all the influence on Nine Inch Nails.
This project served to shed a lot of light on where Reznor was coming from, on what he drew from, on some of the more dangerous and volatile ingredients of what Nine Inch ails was. I'm only left to wonder what they would have become and what they would have created with Reznor; not just remixes but songs, EPs, albums.
Imagine The Fragile produced by Coil.
Imagine Atticus Ross replaced with John Balance.
Imagine Reznor, Christopherson and Balance scoring The Girl With The Dragon
Tattoo.
The mind runs rampant...

And, finally, the ability their music has to change a space, be it a snow covered, tree lined street or Times Square at rush hour. I found myself feeling almost instant menace and unease thanks solely to the sounds I was hearing. It was fantastic and I've never experienced anything quite like it. I can't think of a "band" adept at transforming an environment and infusing it with such emotions.
Throughout my time with Coil, I kept thinking what if more composers tried their approach when it came to scoring horror movies? Then I kept answering myself: there would be better horror movies.

The tops and the bottoms:

Favorite Albums (no particular order):
The Remote Viewer (some of the richest instrumental music I've ever heard)
The Ape of Naples (the perfect sonic evolution of Coil's sound)
Moon's Milk (In Four Phases) (the extremes that were visited here, the quality of sound and emotional depths...)

Least Favorite Albums (no particular order):
ANS (in no world did this need to be three and a half god damn, motherfucking, cocksucking hours long)
Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil (can't help be feel as if I was being mocked by simply listening to this)
The New Backwards (sounds like a bag of chewed up and forgotten bones...like, in a bad way)

Anyway, I'll stop now.
Thanks to everyone who actually read these...I think there were six of you and three of you were Russian.

Please stay tuned for my Prince Review Project.**


A quick note on the bits and pieces that I did not review.

Gold Is The Metal With The Broadest Shoulders and Stolen & Contaminated Songs (because they are mostly collections of demos or alternate versions of songs and were not released as albums)

The Angelic Conversations (because it's not about Coil, not primarily anyway. Their music serves as a background over which Judi Dench reads erotic Shakespeare sonnets. If they had written the sonnets, this would be on the list, but, as they didn't, it did not make the cut)

Unnatural History I, II & III (because these are just collections of scraps and musical falderal, without context or placement)

How To Destroy Angels (Remixes & Re-Recordings (because fuck you if you think I'm going to listen to a 7-track album consisting of remixes of a sixteen minute prank. Fuck you twice, in fact.)

Any of the live CDs or "best ofs" (again, not really albums)

I'm not saying that I didn't listen to these, just that I chose not to review them.





* Well...maybe a few times...

** No.