Attention all Hipsters of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control.

So this morning I was driving in the car and I had what was probably – no I have to say the most genius idea of my entire life. I am freely sharing with you, Dear Readers, because that’s the kind of person I am. If my ideas should come to fruition, I would only be delighted that they did. I am not, after all, the kind of person who would get all proprietary about them. I mean, who coined the phrase cactus pants? or ass Wednesday? Please, there is no need to thank me. My wit is a fountain that never runs dry.

Anyway so I was in the car and as I was pulling up to Olympic I looked next to me and there was this hipster dude with an ironic stache doing a wicked drum solo and singing in his Nissan. Since I was hipster curious, I turned down my ipod and rolled down my window. He paused, right before hitting the air cymbal, smiled and said. Hey. Howyadoin. Then the light turned green and we both took off before I could figure out what he was listening to. But I thought, that totally reminded me of Neil Peart when I saw Rush. Because I seriously doubt anyone nowadays does drum rolls and fills like hipster stached Nissan driver was doing. So then I was thinking, I wonder if the kids even know Rush? And I mean like good Rush. Early Rush. Not later, sucky, moving pictures Rush. I pretty much divide Rush into pre-mp and post mp, the high water mark being, of course, 2112.

check out neil peart's foxy stache

And then it hit me. 2112: the rock opera. But not like a rock opera like tommy was a rock opera, which is to say just a concept rock album. I’m talking, remake 2112 and have the whole thing sung by a choir and opera singers! I mean, doesn’t geddy lee sing like a goddamn opera singer anyway? So here’s what I’m thinking. It’s a little high concept, but hear me out and visualize it. For one thing, the whole thing needs to be done totally Wagnerian, with flowing robes and those helmet hats with the horns. Or something like that but more futuristic. I personally believe that in the future people will dress like the band Eruption, seen here in this video covering Ann Peebles classic song “Can’t Stand The Rain”:

Anyway so right, it’s 2112, and everyone dresses like shalamar, but with mullets and huge mustaches. The set has to look like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but with more pizzaz. Perhaps if the band emerged from pods. Or if there was a huge version of some iconic artifact on stage with which the singers could interact. Something like that. Obviously, lots of dry ice and pyrotechnics.

I assume you, Dear Reader, are intimately familiar with 2112. If you are not, then shame on you! I have several copies you may borrow, but I suggest you immediately download the entirety on itunes, and then purchase this classic in the vastly superior analog format.

I do not feel capable of myself explaining the beauty and majesty that is 2112, and so I am going to lift from wikepedia: In the year 2062, a galaxy-wide war results in the union of all planets under the rule of the Red Star of the Solar Federation. By 2112, the world is controlled by the “Priests of the Temples of Syrinx” [ed: say that without squealing out “WE ARE THE PRIESTS… OF THE TEMPLES…. OF SYRINX!!!”] who determine the content of all reading matter, songs, pictures – every facet of life.

A man discovers a guitar and learns to play different music. When he goes to present this to the priests of the Temples, they destroy the guitar. He goes into hiding and dreams of a world before the Solar Federation. Upon awakening he becomes distraught and commits suicide. As he dies, another planetary battle begins resulting in the ambiguous ending “Attention all planets of the Solar Federation: We have assumed control.”

Omg. Doesn’t that story just send chills up your spine? The Priests destroyed his guitar! They tried to destroy music!! Which is really destroying life, but whatever, we could talk about this all day. Anyway so obviously 2112 is one of the most important pieces of music ever made, and if you are unfamiliar with it, and/or dislike Rush, you are really not the kind of person I need to know.

Back to the opera. So the grandeur and scope of 2112 clearly lends itself to opera. It has a vastness of vision, death, lots of high and low notes, lots of notes themselves, as well as silence, not to mention a message. So can you just see some opera dude (what are they called, anyway? The dudes who sing opera? Are they all tenors? Or were there just three of those guys? Whatever.) singing the main part from The Temples of Syrinx while a chorus of creepy shaved headed people who look like bowie from that movie where he was an alien dressed in long robes sang behind him? Dude, that would totally rock!

So my other idea is an entire rock opera where everything is sung in a Robert Goulet voice. I’m still working on that one.

smoove grooves

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the hostile takeover of mcallister’s hostile makeover

if music were food, part deux

can you really call someone who has over 5000 records a music ’snob’? can we just say that i love music? i love music and food. music, food, and some other things as well.

anyway so tis the season for the kxlu fundraiser. last year, of course, i donated in order to guest dj on mcallister’s show, which i am totally doing again this year. i thought, in order to be egalitarian, that i really ought to see what The Other Radio Station was playing, just to try to see if i was missing out on anything. you know sometimes you think to yourself hey what if there’s this whole aspect of popular culture that i’m missing out on by not having tv or not listening to kroq? what if there’s some truly awsum band or show that i am utterly unaware of, because i am such a complete cultural luddite? what if they brought sanford and son back, and i didn’t even know it.

so i perused the kroq site and, so you wouldn’t have to, listened to several of the bands. and, combining my love of food and music, i bring you…

if music were food, part deux.

pennywise, “we’re gonna fight”. it always shocks me that places like chili’s are so popular. i mean, the food really sucks there. i have to say that i really don’t remember actually eating at a chili’s, per se, but i’m going to assume it’s like all stripmall island restaurants, like applebee’s or the olive garden, which is to say that it has a selection of food which is both bland and yet over salted, fattening, and seemingly – at first taste – flavorful. how do they make food which astes like it has flavor, but doesn’t? i think it has something to do with the production.

linkin park, “new divide”. so all of these mall restaurants have these salad entrees for chicks who are perennially on diets. there’s a place called islands on pico like this. islands blows. it has this faux caribbean theme. anyway, they have these salads which all the girls get because naturally being salads must be low fat. of course they’re just drenched in some dressing which is basically sugar and mayo and the size of a bathtub.

owl city, “fireflies”. still serving tuna tartare with avocado, i see. that’s a little 1999, isn’t it? the wontons are a little limp. waiter with emo hair. saarinen chairs. too loud.

phoenix, “1901″. i encourage everyone to cook, even those who really shouldn’t. and what i mean is, there are some people who really have no talent and/or ability, whose efforts are at best barely edible or just banal. heaven forbid they should try to be creative in the kitchen. the results are usually something bizarre or even comical, like the time my mother put cabbage in jello.

set your goals, “the few that remain”. chuck e cheese for tweens.

dead by sunrise, “the morning after”. once when i was in my first year of college i was mad hung over and absolutely starving to death – i’m pretty sure it was a sunday morning and i got up all bleary and scoured my room for food but sadly there was nothing of mine not even a saltine cracker or (my favorite) smoked oyster. there was just one thing. my roommate’s leftover thai food. so i ate it. i don’t know how old it was other than old but i became horribly, violently ill. afterwards the mere thought of lemon grass sent shudders through my very soul.

paramore, “use somebody” (kings of leon cover). doesn’t it slay you when someone says hey i know a great chinese restaurant, and you’re like, awsum, let’s go! and they take you to pf changs? i mean, seriously wtf? pf changs isn’t chinese. it’s like calling spicy tuna rolls “sushi”. this isn’t rock n roll, this is aural genocide.