oh comic strips

two cd reviews

Honey Hander - Wooly Manerisms
Oh Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth I was completely unaware that you and that Pat Briggs guy from Psychotica had a love child. What’s that You say? It was too powerful of a seed and you had to split it between five males so that your combined sound genes would not be too much for one soul to bear. Why my friend you were thinking indeed. Hey they conveniently made a band called Honey Hander and released a 5 song EP. Yes thank you I am very pleased because now I can stop listening to throw back new wave music and move into early 90’s grunge-noise-techno-retro. Well I just hope I don’t have to wear ugly clothes and be a prick to fully enjoy this wonderful creation of yours. Oh but it was too short my friend just when I was getting into the sound (tiny bit muddy on the vocals) it was over.

Ministry - Rantology
Ministry is 25 years old. How do you celebrate? You can’t release a greatest fits album because you already did. Then you went into rehab and made two more kick fuck CDs. Taking 14 songs that span your career and adding a whole new track (the great Satan)… well I guess that would work. Orchestral sounds and faster beats Al Jourgensen you really have outdone yourself on this one. There is even an opera singer involved on the first track, No W [Redux Mix], that you had a chance meeting with while you were wandering around the studio. The newly updated songs on this album are quite exquisite with political sound bytes including the distinct voice of George W. Rediscovering some old ministry tracks would have been enough but the addition of the newer tracks from House of the Mole pushed it over the top. Warp City is the new Jesus built my Hotrod. I need a remix of Psalm 69 and N.W.O. like I need more Ice cream and pre marital sex--which is a lot.

my article on coheed and cambria

Ok - here’s the deal you might want sit down, grab a pencil, get some paper and try to keep up with me. Coheed and Cambria – those western shirt wearing professors of nether world flavoured sci-fi math rock – have just released their major label debut on Columbia. The album has the long winded title of Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume 1: Fear Through the Eyes of Madness. *breath* There’s more. This is part one of the last chapter in a quadrilogy based on a comic book by girly voiced guitarist Claudio Sanchez. Whoa what the fuck? I thought you said it was their debut? The band actually has released chapter’s two and three in 2003 and 2004 respectively on Equal Vision Records. Chapter one has yet to be released. Why? Well that is one of the questions that we asked bassist Michael Todd when we caught up with the band in october11th mid preparations to play the Croatian Cultural Centre.

“We just wanted to jump right into the action,” explains Todd, in reference to the decision to save chapter one for last and George Lucas-ize it with a prequel. “We thought that using our first record to layout the ground work for a story might be kind of crappy.” Since the band is evolving at such a rapid rate in the past three years it should be an awkward switch to do the first part of the story last. “You know what maybe we might even go back to some sort of Shabuty (the previous band for three of the members of Coheed) days but even then I don’t know we’ll see when we get there. It might even be a fucking country album for all I know at this point. Who knows what we will be into then.”

Pretty much any new punker will reach for their genitals when you mention Coheed and Cambria. Warped tour ‘04 made the band a household name but according to Todd there was little performance involved in the creation of their first release 'post fame'. “The album is a natural evolution for us. It is the best thing we have ever done. It is a lot more musical, more cohesive. People are saying that It seems more simple [than the first two albums] but I think it is better woven, musically. It is dope.”

To accompany the Albums there are two comic books and a graphic novel. Christopher Shy was brought on board for the latest instalment released in September to support Good Apollo blah blah blah. According to Michael Todd, the band switched from Wes Abbot (who did the last two) for the third comic in an effort to match a different style of art that better captures the dark tone of the comic book. A reasonable action since the story is about a man who is on a journey through a parallel netherworld to avenge the death of his siblings and parents, who are surprisingly enough named Coheed and Cambria. This is where the band took its moniker but the names are purely fictional and mean nothing.

So how do you construct a concept band? Where do you start. When asked how he was approached with the idea Todd replied: “Claudio and I were in Shabuty with another drummer Travis joined at the tail end and we had a falling out and thank god josh was there so we had a new band and we didn’t have a name we held on to Shabuty for one bar show and then we said fuck this we have to do something different and Coheed and Cambria came up cause it was an idea that Claudio had been throwing around for an acoustic idea. Why don’t we just take that name and some of the ideas?”

On an unrelated side note in an interview with Cream Online it was stated that Sony banned Josh Petard (drummer) from doing radio interviews because of his swearing and general unruly ness. In truth he is not banned he is allowed to do said interviews but he has to be under strict supervision and with a 5 second delay. Sony censored the drummer for his antics apparently he likes to swear and mouth off the Djs a bit. Todd closed the interview with the explanation about his band mates actions "The thing about radio interviews is it is about who can strike first. The DJ is so damn clever all the time you know and the next second you don’t really know what to say and I think josh goes into the interviews with that in mind."

this is one i wrote about doing cocaine

As he holds his nose and holds his flask to his mouth, my friend tells "once the drip hits you have to drink and you know, try not to puke." Everything smells and tastes like strong aspirin. It's the drip, the acrid taste in the back of your throat. reminding you of a pharmaceuticals and for some reason that off white blue colour of a supermarket’s neon lights.

"Woohoo buddy you just did your first real rail.” The same friend as before. We are in the band room of the railway club. The only thing I feel a little off about is I am 26 and it is so late to try Cocaine. I should have done it in grade 10 like everyone else. Like when my ex-best friend stole a sea-doo and hawked it for an 8 ball. I was middle Christian class in that sort. I.e. i didn't fuck or do real drugs until college. Of course weed was in there but that is only because for the underage in small town backed by woods it is easier to acquire than beer. There are actually three reasons why I have never been bitten by angel dust.

First reason it is the most expensive drug and supposedly you need more and more and more to last you all night. Everyone knows that. That is why it has become the drug you do when offered and that is all. You never buy coke for yourself. Me and my friends never had enough to buy coke we had trouble scrounging for joints and talls

Reason #2 it was never around. I was never really one of the popular people. It was the cool people that were hitting all the hard drugs. A lot of my friends from high Scholl did get into drugs but that was after grade 10 more like grade 11 when I quit sports and decided it was about time i find myself try to answer those questions you are told to ignore about life. Like why are we here? How is easy. And why do we treat each other like shit instead of accepting. I after all was in high school. Coke always seemed like the chief of police's sons drug, upper middle class and every single antagonist in a 1980's tittie movie.

Back for 3. Drugs hit me very hard. My tolerance is very low. I have managed a social somewhat acceptable level of alcohol tolerance but my pain and drug tolerance is well below the average 'man' level. I can't smoke weed. I go from being sober to super fucked in 2 good deep inhales. I haven’t bothered to push past that since grade 9. I was always scared of ecstasy, LSD, and heroine because who knows what could happen. Remember when that red headed kid on Degrassi High did acid and jumped off of the bridge and came back to school after a couple of months and threatened to kick everyone in the head. PS dear mom to this date I still haven’t touched these three.

Everyone will tell you, well at least they told me, that coke is so popular because it makes people feel better about themselves you know all those freakin jerks with the expensive clothes and boring haircuts that us poor people justify the unfairness of the universe by telling ourselves that they are all miserable and don't know who they really are and deep inside they are unhappy with all their materials goodies. Brighter the picture darker the negative. It is all just because when you grow up poor you can't admit that their life is better than yours so you invent these drawbacks in their life.

As you can maybe guess cocaine has made me a rambler as I writing all of this on the back of a beer at a bar. I think to myself as I write all these notes why do people do drugs in general? In high school it was peer pressure just to be cool. In college it was a different kind of peer pressure everyone was doing it to have fun and how could you not want to have fun. After both it seems like people do it because they have holes in their life they need it to bridge the gap.

How do I feel you may ask? Cut the crap get to what it feels like. My heart is racing a bit more like just beating hard. I have a bad taste in my mouth. I became incredibly focused and dismissive of the outside world. IE I wrote all of this in the bar as a band played. Sure I got more confidence but it was just in what I was doing like publishing my hazardly scribbled notes. Now that would be fucking genius. It has been a mere 30 minutes and all ready the effects started to fail. Maybe I should do some more.

this one is a technology rant

I love technology. I love the internet. I love video games. I love my digital Camera. I love my cell phone. Some people will tell you that technology is bad. That humans being so dependent on it will in fact be our ultimate downfall. There has always been something that was uneasy with me. Where is the line. How much technology is bad for them. Is it just the brand new stuff that they don’t quite know yet like digital cameras or the blade form plough.

Those of you who do still think we would be better without technology are being unreasonable. What is the extent of your dislike how much technology is too much. Surely it can’t be any technology that was developed before the fifties. You could never convince any right minded man or womyn that these are non beneficial developments in the human race. The internal combustion engine is technology. Sure the carbon dioxide exhaust is bad for the ozone layer and the world is pretty much headed toward Armageddon over the fuel but come on who wants to walk to metro town?

Lets get a little simpler here how bout the plough it allowed us to till soil and plant better crops that were more fruitful. I got it you know the scene in 2001 a space oddysey when that monkey grabs the bone and hit’s the weird mini hippo-elephant like animal and kills eat and they all eat the life giving meat? Well that bone is technology. Would you have us live in caves grovelling in fear from the panthers and not wield bones and feast on the glorious meat of the weak animals.

A good example of the ludicrous hatred for technology is one of my best friends the trusty cell phone. You can’t hate cell phones. You can hate the people who use them with little regard for others that surround them but you can’t hate cell phones. Some jerk had bad reception and had to raise his voice while you were eating your chicken penne at the old spaghetti factory does not make an inanimate object the viscous devil you have convinced yourself it is.

You can hate the fuck out of bad manners but hating something comprised of plastic, wires and miracles is ridiculous. Come on who wants to be ridiculous? I don’t dislike knifes in fact I quite enjoy slicing tomatoes but I do dislike people stabbing each other. This doesn’t give me the right to tell everyone I hate knives every time someone brings up the topic of cutting.

Other items that are receiving the criticism are the newer forms of previously established readily enjoyed items. Such as video games, photography and music. I enjoy being romantic. When it comes to using more feelings than common sense would advise I am right in there, but not with objects.

At age 10 I used to wake up at three in the morning while my parents were asleep so I could play video games. Of course it was old Nintendo and Sega Master System. It was like a religious experience I would play these games and think about life. Well maybe I didn’t consider the beginnings of the universe but I came as close to contemplating my navel as any ten year old could.

Does my curfew negligence mean that I have mystical memories about these games--yes. Does it mean I am going to convince myself that they are better that the new video games because of my senses were easier to please back then--absolutely not. Me and mega man were best friends but friends grow apart and must move on.

To those still not sold, I urge, go join a group that will encourage your beliefs. After all I think it is beneficial for everyone to develop social groups that include people you can get along with and encourage each other to further your beliefs as well as your endeavours. The huderites probably need some new DNA for their gene pool right about now.

you all should know how much i like to fucking swear already

Curse words belong in literature. All curse words need to be included because writing is a means of expression and swearing is a tool to help this means.

An individual could argue that saying simple, tired, even cliché swears like ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’ is a cheap out and makes your writing less intelligent than if you haven’t used that curse word at all. I would just like to at this juncture point out that pretty much every writing class will teach you that flowering up your writing trying to make it sound intelligent is a bad thing because you will end up alienating your audience. What I mean is even if it makes your writing tawdry is that really so awful. After all people don’t talk flowery and intelligent on a day to day basis. I am pretty sure however though that I might be able to hear a couple of you readers belt out a good ‘goddamn’ when something goes awry.

Writing has always had the sole purpose of communicating information from the writer to the reader. Whether it be point by point instructions or heart break cry at night poetry each and ever single piece of writing has one thing in common and that is an idea. The communication of this idea is best done when the reader can identify with the reader. A writer in turn should write for her/his audience accordingly. This could be seen as an argument for the other side because you could ask “Well what if the audience doesn’t like swearings?” To which I would reply “Your in fucking college you just got out of your parents house you are experimenting with drugs, your drinking too goddamn much and a lucky few of you are pissing off your new roomates by having loud sex. Jesus fuck maybe I shouldn’t swear I might be all wrong. Maybe I’ll give up swearing, hell what the shit why don’t I just stop all the bad stuff the un protected premarital sex, the alcoholism, the illegal drug use, the laughing at poo humour and why don’t I try and curb the drinking too much coffee first thing in the morning and then proceeding to laugh at my own jokes and annoy the fuck out of my co-workers with my banal absoludicrous sense of humor and temper tantrums. Why don’t I just be nice and wear clean neutral shades of clothes and keep my hair kempt and change bedpans at the old peoples home? I’ll tell ya why because it is no godamn motherfucking fun… FUCK

yay more picture action



see bigger size image at this link http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/aberant/Untitled-1.jpg