Fugulele is to blame.

Who or what is Fugulele?  Fugulele is Syracuse’s… Onondaga County’s… New York State’s… Hmm… Well,  Fugulele is America’s #1 all-ukulele Fugazi cover band.  I’m with the band, in a sense, and it stems from my performing improv with some of the members of the band.  Here is a video of them performing “Waiting Room” at The Westcott Theater.

Since seeing Fugulele in concert a few times, I’ve been falling back to listening to more post-hardcore and noise bands.  Sure, it doesn’t make sense behind my reasoning, because there really is no reasoning.  I’m just in the mood.  So, why not?

Yes, this is another post to further illustrate my vast taste in music.

A few years ago, Seth Rogen starred in the bittersweet Observe and Report.  You’ll probably disagree with me, but I enjoyed that movie the times I watched it.  This movie is not in my movie collection, however.  It’s a dark comedy, and it makes you uncomfortable.  You laugh, and you laugh at things that you shouldn’t be laughing at.  But that’s life.  The soundtrack is eclectic, ranging from The Yardbirds and The Band to McLusky and Dwarves.  McLuscky’s song on the soundtrack, “Lightsabre C***sucking Blues,” stood out, so I looked into the band, which had since broken up.  How I hadn’t heard about them in college is beyond me.

The decision to post a McLusky song was difficult in the sense that I wasn’t sure which one to post.  Posting the song mentioned above wasn’t going to happen, and that thought hasn’t been second guessed.  I don’t want to be that vulgar in my writing (hence, my partial censoring myself above.  The list was narrowed down to two songs, and the decision had been made to go with “Falco vs. The Young Canoeist,” because they only swear once.

You may all like this tune better, anyway.  The title of this post is a line in the song.

I know what you’re thinking, and, no, I am not angry.  If I’m at a bar–any bar or pub–and I hear Johnny Cash, I want to flip a table and rumble.  I’m only kidding, of course.  This pacifist blogger has never gotten into a fist fight, and I never plan to.  Cash does get my blood flowing though.

No. I don’t look like the the person who would enjoy this noise–that’s a term put in this post by you, yes you–but the question is, being directed at the older index-finger-shaker tsk-ing me, how do you criticize me when you listen to classic rock?  If you tell me to turn this off, I’ll only put on A Tribe Called Quest.

Let’s take The Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, and any other band who started out as light pop rock when first hitting the airwaves.  You know you like them, and with this acknowledgement you wade in a pool of hypocrisy!  Bah!  With evolution, these bands took risks and developed their sounds that everyone came to accept, know and love.  Look at the modern day evolvers as well:  Red Hot Chili Peppers, 311, Incubus, (dare I say) Sugar Ray, and Smash Mouth.  All of these bands, Incubus and RHCP especially since they were very funk/metal in the beginning, have changed their sound (most for worse and/or for radio play).  We’re not going there.  However, I am still fans of the first three in that list.  Some metal heads may love Tool, and they give the finger to jam bands; Tool is a progressive metal band; ergo, the group falls into the jam band category whether anyone likes that or not–this is my opinion, however.

Progressive is progressive.  I love Rx Bandits, a band formally known as The Pharmaceutical Bandits, and they went from an independent punk/ska band to Drive-Thru Records to independent again, and the guys are taking a more progressive approach now.  Rx Bandits still capture and emit flavors of their old sound into their new work, but I love them as much as I had in the beginning.  I still like to gloat how I saw their one-and-currently-only Syracuse show back (in 2003?) when Metro Grille was Planet 505.

Ah, here’s some more music.  Why not?  It’s not the Bandits’ most recent work, but you’ll enjoy it.

Weird is weird.  Noise is noise.  Somewhere there is music.  My parents introduced me to a variety of music, including Joni Mitchell and Black Sabbath, that Central New York free radio helped develop and expand.  My friends helped branch my taste out, and sometimes it was uncomfortable.  Ever since who-knows-when the search for new and music variety has been ever consistent.  We cannot get full from music.  We are all full of parasites, because the music take in is never enough.

Now, back to some big band jazz and a short story production.