Due to writing deadlines, school, work, and my departure for DC on Friday, I’m going to post some of my favorite reruns. I’m creatively tapped-out, and will be for the next week and a half.

The Rest Of The Street Team

I write a column in a national music magazine that affords me the opportunity to poke fun at new/overrated/bad albums. It gets an unknown degree of attention and generates an unknown amount of hate mail (that nevertheless manages to find me).

Here’s an example:

This e-mail was sub-headed “Ha Ha” and was sent by an employee (of what stripe I don’t know) of Vagrant Records…

That’s so funny you totally queend out on like 7 good bands in this month’s issue of magnet.

What’s even more funny is that it will only help with record sales (especially in dashboard’s case). Weird how that works huh?

Thanks!
Fernando.

Wow. You really got me. Stop twisting the handle, please…

Some entries get cut due to space constraints, poor target choices, or shoddy writing on my part. I assume that the discarded entries below are mine for the posting, so…..

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE
Welcome Interstate Managers
You’re fired. So what happened here? Did the entire band just get out of rehab? A “this is it, guys, our last chance, it’s now or never” conversation preceded
the writing of this record. “Stacy’s Mom” is grade A Dawson’s Creek Cameo Band bullshit. Mom’s are exactly where this band is going to be getting its action after this one.

JESSY MOSS
Street Knuckles
For about a week, I thought the name of the band was Street Knuckles. I was very excited. I pictured this Molly Hatchet throwback badass Jacksonville Florida three-guitar nightmare/fantasy awaiting me. Maybe, if I was lucky, the lead singer/rhythm guitarist would even be, like, in a wheelchair or something. No.
No. No. This is tedious “tough-girl” Brit rap with the picture perfect media-ready “fucked-up on the dole” childhood back-story. She’s being marketed as a
new young estrogen rocket. Do we really need another feminist ambulance-chaser to make issues out of non-issues? Do we need Bratmobile From The Block?

VENDETTA RED
Between The Never And The Now
Two matching vowel sounds plus a primary color in the name. You are at the
mercy of the stupidest person in your apartment complex, and this is the guy
who will burn it down. But not before he’s caught you in the parking lot 40
times and finally guilt-tripped you into seeing his shitty band. Shouldn’t have bought that bug-ridden bag of dirtweed from him eight months ago; now
you have a Vendetta Red coffee table coaster.

NICKLE CREEK
This Side
REALITY SHOW IDEA!!! The members of Nickel Creek have to spend six months in an unheated Appalachian cabin eating acorns. Maybe they’ll have to
replace the “My Grass Is Blue” bumper sticker on the tour van with one that
says “My Lungs Are Black.” Slummers are a hoot. Guess it’s a little hard to eat
Ethiopian food out of a rusty hubcap; can’t just sop it up with a biscuit, y’all. This is being called “Alterna-Grass” by mouths on straight faces across the nation. They look like former band geeks with a sponsorship from American Eagle Outfitters. Like the similarly done up modern country band, Rascal Flats, the two dudes in Nickel Creek pose the question, “Is it gay or country?” These people actually pose for pictures while standing in a creek. Nickel Creek will have plenty of time to think about the crimes they committed to your ears after ten years of 11:00 AM Farm Aid slots.

More Of The Rest Of The Street Team

Here’s some more cutting room floor “Where’s The Street Team” entries. See the previous post for an explanation. These were written for the column’s first appearance - back in April or May or something. I can tell why these were cut. Not that hot, I must say, not that hot…..

ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS
S/t
I didn’t even think that Emo bands were stupid enough to try the self-deprecation route in 2003. The carrot that Dreamworks waved in front of these kids is going to pale in comparison to the proverbial major label dick they’ll be removing from their bums four years down the pike.

SIGUR ROS
()
Post-Good.

LIZ PHAIR
S/t
The barfly of Wicker Park returns with an album for people who fuck to NPR.

THE MUSIC
S/t
Oooooh…….block rockin’ beats over psych guitar….it’s called Primal Fucking Scream people!!

A.F.I.
Sing The Sorrow
Pardon me kids, but I’m going to have to ask to see what you have in your giant cargo pants there. The new A.F.I. CD…..I’ll tell ya what, you hand it over, and I’ll turn a cheek when you lift it out of the cutout bin in three months.

BOYSETSFIRE
Tomorrow Come Today
Pull down that baseball cap and scratch your extreme facial hair, because the 1,943th reason that our political climate currently sucks is…envelope please…aural annihilation by thousands of shitty hardcore bands!!!!

ANI DiFRANCO
Evolve
…..into someone who sells smart drinks at the next Burning Man Festival.