Pretty Goes with Pretty

Rockstar: Supernova—All Pussy Edition

My prediction for the winner of Rockstar: Supernova

Am I the only one hopelessly addicted to the abominable car accident that is Rockstar: Supernova? (It's okay: I expect the answer to be yes.) There is so, so much wrong with it—yet I can’t help but tune in every single week.

Just what is so fantastically wrong with this show? Some might point to the most obvious: just about all of the contestants are no-talent hacks. Every woman (except for the current odds-on favorite, Dilana, and my personal favorite, Zayra) has the same burly biker babe voice—as if since they are women they must make up for that fact by sounding like they have three-pound balls rather than actual personality. It’s so “bar band” it’s maddening. I wonder if any of these women have noticed that there are absolutely no popular or iconic female rock stars that have voices so absent of, well, femininity. Even PJ Harvey or Joan Jett, both of whom are totally ass-kicking tough, are tough without mimicking men. Meanwhile, the men on Rockstar are not much better. They too—all of them, every last one of them—lack any originality whatsoever. I’m actually impressed with the CBS producers for their steadfast dedication in finding the most bland singers in the country.

And of course there are other obvious things wrong with this show, and their names are Brooke Burke and Dave Navarro. Not to mention Tommy Lee, who can’t help but act and look like a bored child forced to be somewhere he doesn’t want to be.

But these are all such easy things to pick on, and they’re not the kind of flaws that make me hate it so much that in fact I love it. The main problem with this show—this show called Rockstar, in which the contestants are supposed to act like rock stars, so they can play in a band with dudes from Metallica, Motley Crüe, and Guns and Fucking Roses—is that this show is full of pussies.

I swear, none of these contestants have a backbone. They get caught on tape whining about their critiques, and when they’re confronted about it, they just clam up and apologize. Likewise the motherfuckers in Supernova bend over backward to point out that they’re just trying to help. They’re not trying to be mean. You know what, Supernova? Fuck you! You guys are from the three baddest-ass bands of the ‘80s and you’re afraid to be mean? You should quit trying to get everyone to come together for a group hug and start injecting yourself with a little attitude. Whatever happened to taking no prisoners, kicking ass, and flipping the bird to authority? God, but I feel like every episode of Rockstar is one big group therapy session. Who is letting these tattooed metalheads get away with all these niceties? What idiot producer at CBS can’t figure out that the whole reason that vanilla showboat American Idol works the way it does is because Simon Cowell is a dick? When the most popular show in America is less afraid to have balls than a show full of dirtheads and hessians, someone needs to get fired. This show should end in a fistfight or riot every single week. Anything less is a failure.

All this nicey-nice happened last year, too, when I was sure INXS was going to throw bouquets of roses at every wannabe they nixed each week. This season’s contestants should take note that last season the only guy that ever rocked the boat and stuck to his guns was the guy that wound up winning. That’s why I’m rooting for Zayra this season, even though I seem to be the only person in the universe that likes her. She is so bizarre, so loony, and she seems to flaunt her inability to sing on key—and hey, there’s little that’s more punk rock than that! But she stands her ground. She practically calls Gilby Clarke an asshole every single week, and I love her for it. She wears blue spandex and dances like a slutty robot Toni Basil, and I love her for it. As long as she stays on the show, Rockstar will remain my #1 guilty pleasure love-to-hate destination each week. As soon as she’s off, the whole sloppy mess of sissy bitches falls off my radar.

My Inner Adolescent Yearns to be an Inner Young Adult

This summer has unexpectedly been the summer of my inner adolescent. Between the X-Men and Superman movies and reality metal shows like Supergroup on VH1 and, beginning tonight, Rock Star: Supernova (featuring ex-members of Motley Crüe, Metallica, and Guns n Roses!), pretty much everything that comprised my teenage universe has been neatly repackaged for me. And I’ve been eating it up like a bag of candy—65% enjoyment, 25% guilt, 10% illness.

As regular readers know, I’ve already gone on about X-Men, and I reveled in VH1’s “Metal Month” in May, plus a smattering of Axl Rose and other nerd pursuits here and there. In fact I was tempted to write about the car accident that is Supergroup (and the meta-car accident that is the Supergroup Post-Show—have you seen this? Immediately after the episode airs, the band spends thirty minutes summarizing it for you, in case Sebastian Bach’s desire to go running or Evan Seinfeld’s porny open marriage was too complex for you to understand), but I began to feel that maybe I was reveling in this shit a little too much. That 25% guilt was gaining steam.

With the debut of the second season of CBS’s Rock Star this week (which, to me, looks way more interesting than last year’s, which was a bit of a car accident itself), to extend the candy metaphor, I can’t help but love it but I’m getting really, really nauseous.

Coincidentally, I was chatting with an old high school friend of mine last week and we were reminiscing about the year we finally grew out of metal and, eagerly but clumsily, fell in love with punk and indie rock. Where the new Anthrax album just seemed tired, discovering an oddity like the Jesus Lizard was utter epiphany. Soon enough I was trading in Slayer for Slint. Likewise X-Men grew stale while existentialism grabbed firm hold of me; I  boxed up my comics and devoured Camus instead.

Thirteen or so years later, I’m hovering around thirty and feeding my inner adolescent with all the nostalgia it can gorge itself on. But midway through this summer I feel my inner adolescent growing up, just as it did in the real time of the 1990s. Hopefully pop culture will grow up with me. Next season on Rock Star? Let’s see Duane Denison (Jesus Lizard) on guitar, Doug Scharin (Codeine, Rex) on drums, and Bob Weston (Shellac) on bass. Or better yet, remember the cryptic liner notes on Slint’s Spiderland?

interested female vocalists write
1864 douglas blvd. louisville, ky. 40205

Memo to CBS: you could be responsible for the final and ultimate realization of one of the unfulfilled rock prophesies of our era!

Okay, okay. I know a reformed Slint would not equal millions of viewers... let a boy dream. At the very least I'd like to see these nostalgia shows move into the grunge era. You could get a decent bit of mileage out of mixing up some members of Soundgarden, Faith No More, Smashing Pumpkins and, I don't know, Henry Rollins or Sean Lennon. Whatever. My inner adolescent has grown tired of headbanging and is ready to secede to the Alternative Nation.

But keep the comic book movies coming. I'm still a sucker for those.

The Singer from Odin is All Talk, but Hilfiger is All Action: This Month in Metal!

I’m sure you know, but May has been “Metal Month” over at VH1 Classics. That means lots of metallic countdowns, a bunch of Behind the Musics, and a new four-part documentary, Heavy, airing this week. I happened to catch the first part of Heavy last night, and while it was mildly more interesting than most talking-head shows on VH1, it didn’t offer anything new.

But—and here’s where I make my devil horn hand gesture—to my sheer delight, the channel has also been airing The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: The Metal Years. The last time I saw this film was on HBO not long after it originally came out in 1988. In other words, I was in 7th grade and was fully under the spell of Motley Crüe, Poison, and the rest. Within the year I’d begun growing my hair, wearing all black all the time, and faux-moshing in my bedroom to Metallica and Anthrax.

Seeing Decline Part II back then was enthralling, just because my adolescent self was shocked that a movie would be made about the music I liked. And of course it didn’t hurt to see Paul Stanley in bed with three hot babes, and the sexy dance competition later on in the film.

Seventeen years later, the documentary was fascinating in a whole new way. It is so much more compelling than Behind the Music or Heavy could ever be, just because the bands don’t get the benefit of mocking themselves in retrospect. Here, they are taking themselves 100% seriously.

Even more fun than watching C. C. Deville say he can’t make this music unless he’s sober, or watching Ozzy Osbourne fail miserably at making breakfast—but not as fun as watching the guy from W.A.S.P pour vodka over his face while floating in a pool, with his mother looking on and only mildly disapproving—is all the wannabe bands that are so damn sure they’re going to make it. Bands like London, Seduce, and Odin. The guys in Odin are the most laughable, as they sit in a hot tub and the singer, Randy O., declares that he'll commit suicide if his band does not make it.

Of course, after the movie was over, I immediately went to the interweb to see if I could find out whether or not he had the Metal Ballz to follow through with it. Of course, no. But I did find this interview, in which Mr. O. has reassuringly not yet risen above self-mockery. The interview—which you really must read—is of the 20 Questions variety, which Randy answered by email just a few short months ago. His response was apparently beyond editing. Here’s my favorite part:

5.  Rate a vocalist 1-10. 1 being a joke and 10 being the shit!
Sebastian Bach = 10++++++++++++++++++
John Bush = 7
Bret Michaels =0
Robert Plant =10
Don Dokken =3
David Coverdale =7
Jizzy Pearl =0
Vince Neil =5
Jimmi Bleacher =O
W. Axl Rose = I WILL KICK HIS FUCKING ASS ANY WHERE, ANY TIME, AXL, YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME AXL, I GOT A PIECE AN I WOULD LOVE TO GET IN THE RING WITH THIS RIP OFF ARTIST/freak show. 10 HE IS A GREAT FRONT MAN BUT HE FUCKING guy RIPED MY ASS OFF I SEEN HEM AT SO MANY OF THE ODIN SHOWS FRONT AND CENTER AND BACK STAGE AS WELL ... I do want to play with slash. And before I die I hope to get that chance.

6.  What rock star deserves a smack in the mouth and why?

AXL. FOR BEING SUCH A DUMB ASS BREAKING UP THE NEXT STONES, LED ZEPPLIN I CAN KEEP GOING.  I WOULD LOVE TO GIVE AXL A SMACK
IF HE WASINT SUCH AN ASS HOLE he would give a little credit to the O man

The man obviously has very complicated feelings about Axl Rose. Surely he’s written a thank-you letter to Tommy Hilfiger this week, after the fey designer delivered Rose some "November Pain."

Metal Month is not over yet. If you haven’t seen Decline Part II lately, or if you haven’t seen it before at all—even if you weren’t a fan of the music—check your local listings. It will be re-aired a couple more times before the month is over.

Yesterday's News—Today!

—If you are a fan of Arrested Development, this is so much cooler than owning the complete DVD set. [via terra non firma]

—Mark Sarvas over at The Elegant Variation has been threatening to do an uber-critical review of both the newest n+1 and Believer. Surely no one is safe! Sadly, however, he hasn’t gotten his copy of the new n+1 yet, so we’re all left to twitter anxiously. If you can’t keep it locked down, Brian Sholis at In Search of the Miraculous has taken his own stab at n+1.

—Postpunk Junk has a bunch of good stuff right now. Tons of rare Fall mp3s, some live Low, and a track from Jonathan Fire*Eater (the pre-Walkmen band). And if those aren't enough, One Faint Deluded Smile has a couple tracks apiece from Tropicalia masters Tom Ze and Gilberto Gil, and Chocoreve has an album’s worth of live material from Fairport Convention.

Girls and Brothers

It's possible you think you're somehow above a show like the Gilmore Girls. That's too bad, if you are, because aside from being a show about mothers and daughters, it's one of the smartest shows on TV. Take, for instance, the fact that when one character, Lane, starts a band with her friends, they find a lead guitarist who is, like, way older than them but he totally shreds and he never gave up the dream even though he owns a pizza parlor. Oh yeah, that guy is played by Sebastian Bach of Skid Row. And a couple weeks ago Bach covered "Hollaback Girl," which was awesome. Also, Norman Mailer wandered in and out of an episode for no good reason once. Madeline Albright appeared in a random dream sequence. You want indie cred? The Shins picked this show, not the lame OC, for their guest spot, and supposedly a member of Brian Jonestown Massacre recently showed up to satire an event that actually happened to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. And who's next? How about Joe Pernice? Here's the news, straight from the Pernice Bros.:

Joe Pernice will make his episodic television debut in   an upcoming Gilmore Girls.  He will play   one of several Stars Hollow troubadour-wannabes that descend on the town after   the regular troubadour, Grant Lee Phillips, is discovered by Neil Young and whisked off on a tour.  Joe will sing a yet-to-be-determined song.  No word yet on who the other troubadours are, but knowing the excellent musical instincts of the Gilmore gang, it will undoubtedly be good.  I do not yet know the air date, but will post as soon as I do.  Joe heads out to Burbank next week to tape.  I know I have a proclivity toward making things up, but this is true.  I swear to God.