For those wondering who The Zutons are lemme warn you. They aren’t normal fare for ninebullets. The Zutons are an indie-pop rock band from Liverpool that writes largely disposable music aimed towards the iPod generation. Still, I think there is a place for the “more hooks than substance” cd section on everyone’s rack. Sometimes you’re in the mood for the musical equivalent of Chinese food when you head to the cd rack, and The Zutons are the kind of band that fills that need. Great for the car on your Saturday night drive out the the club.

I first heard The Zutons via some silly sampler I got for making a purchase of more than 20 dollars. The sampler contained “Pressure Point” from their debut album, Who Killed…The Zutons? Normally I don’t even listen to those things, but for some reason I did…heard the song, loved it and ended up buying (and loving) the complete cd. Who Killed…The Zutons? was followed by the, IMO, largely unimpressive Tired of Hanging Around. Now, two years later, would they prove that Hanging Around was just a sophomore slump, or are The Zutons gonna end up being a one album wonder for me?

It turned out to be a little of both. The new album exchanges some of the “party” flavor of Who Killed…The Zutons? for a dose of “paranoia”. Perhaps it’s the fame starting to grind on them, the money making them mistrustful, or the perhaps it’s something else, but You Can Do Anything is quite dark. It’s not nearly as awesome as Who Killed and I doubt Amy Winehouse is gonna cover anything from it, but it’s still way better than Tired of Hanging Around.

The Zutons - Pressure Point

The Zutons - Valerie
Mark Ronson (feat. Amy Winehouse) - Valerie

The Zutons - You Could Make The Four Walls Cry

The Zutons Official Site, The Zutons on myspace

I just thought I’d acknowledge that this is the six hundred and sixty sixth post on ninebullets.net.

Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast
Danzig - Until You Call On The Dark
The Legendary Shack Shakers - Where’s The Devil When You Need Him
Hank III - Devil’s Daughter

I wish I had noticed this before. I would have made a bigger post out of this instead of scanning my library real quick.

The other day I made a post about my getting stabbed in the eye by a Sage Palm and posted a few songs with a blind theme. The band Cicada Omega chimed in in the comments with a perfect song that I didn’t even think about in Soundgarden’s, Searching With My Good Eye Closed. Since I am still suffering from blurry vision I decided I would do a follow-up post which included that track…and, if you’re like me, it’ll make you wanna hear Outshined as well so I’ve included that one too.

It also reminded me that I have Cicada Omega’s new album in my box of stuff to review and since they are playing the Deep Blues Festival next month I am putting it in the cd player when I get home tonight. I reviewed their sampler last August and it’s time to give the full-length a proper listen.

Soundgarden - Searching With My Good Eye Closed
Soundgarden - Outshined

Cicada Omega - Big Black Chain (myspace)

Instead of a corner on the dining room table I’ve got a complete office now!

When I first wrote about The Weight I described them as equal parts Drag The River and Lucero, but this time around that description no longer applies. While the band maintains the line-up of Joseph Plunket, Uncle Will Noland, Jay Ellis, Fletcher “Poor Boy” Johnson, and Johnny Carpenter, the ‘punk kids making Americana music’ framework has been dropped for a more classic ‘country meets a good time’ sound. Funny what a stable lineup of a couple of years will do to a band.

Are Men is honest, pure and exactly what I was wanting from Shooter Jenning’s mega-disappointment, The Wolf. Thank you, The Weight. It’s been awhile since I was able to type this but, Are Men is most definitely Essential Listening. Check it out.

The Weight - Johnny’s Song
The Weight - Talkin’

The Weight’s Official Site, The Weight on myspace, Buy Are Men

I swear to God…ninebullets can’t seem to catch a break. After being mildly ignored for the past month while I painted and moved I thought ninebullets would get back on track as my life started to find it’s routine again this week. Then came Saturday morning…I was outside playing fetch with my dog. Bent down to pick up her soccer ball and BLAMMO! stabbed in the cornea by a sage palm spine…white hot heat…tears and snot (who knew eye trauma caused sinal flushing?) all over my face. The result:

So. I have one eye that can not focus on shit and this makes staring at computer screens a real bitch. Plus, I have no depth perception and the one clear eye/one blurry outta focus eye makes me pretty dizzy sometimes. What does that mean for the site? Well, the doctor said it could be this weekend before my vision clears up so it means another week of hit and miss posting. Maybe some more Michigan hipster shit from the new ninebullets.net contributor Marci. I dunno. I am gonna try and write some stuff up tonight. Till then:

Possessed By Paul James - Cold and Blind
Tom Waits - Blind Love

And you gotta be crazy thinking I’m gonna let a post about blindness pass without this one:

Manfred Man - Blinded By The Light

The Cure is one of my favorite bands.  Sure, I wasn’t yet 5 years old when they released their first album, but that didn’t stop me from falling completely in love with them in my early teens.  I’ve lost a little of the fire over the last few years with their most recent releases, but I still can’t pass up a chance to see them on tour.  So, after fighting rush hour traffic and parking without incident, I got a drink for just under the price of a barrel of crude, rolled my eyes at the $45 concert shirts, and headed to the seats that I bought almost a year ago before they rescheduled much of their tour.  I had missed the opener, 65 Days of Static, but it seems most around me had as well.

It wasn’t long after we sat down that The Cure hit the stage to raucous applause, and 5 songs in as they went from “Fascination Street” to “The Walk”, I remarked to my boyfriend how relieved I was that they weren’t playing all new stuff.  He simply responded, “They know better.”  They must have, because the concert spanned their full 30 year history with a heavy emphasis on earlier stuff.

Porl Thompson definitely won Best Dressed for the night as he bopped about the stage like a man half his age, sporting head tattoos and a pair of fabulous glittery red heels that would have made Dorothy proud…and a little slutty.  Robert was Robert with the same baggy clothes, red lipstick, and black eye makeup that has been his trademark for so many years.  Simon Gallup looked like a kid on stage next to bald Porl and smooshy Robert as he strutted around like Billy Idol’s younger brother.  Jason Cooper was pretty hidden back there on the drums, and while I haven’t been impressed with anything they’ve done since he joined the band during the recording of Wild Mood Swings, I don’t blame him for those albums, and he did a great job on every song he played on.

My boyfriend isn’t a huge Cure fan, he was there as my date and to take pictures, but he did want to hear “Pictures of You”.  After “Lovesong”, I told him it wasn’t likely they’d play it, as that marked three songs already from Disintegration and we were only 6 songs in.  Because I can never win a damned argument with my boyfriend, they played “Pictures of You” two songs later, and I started to wonder if I’d warped back in time to The Prayer tour.  When he reached an arm up and clutched at the air, his fingers barely peeking out of his ridiculously long sleeve, during the chorus to “Catch”, I giggled like I was 15 again, staring at his poster on the ceiling over my bed.

As the show went on I heard so many favorites, “Push”, “Inbetween Days”, “Just Like Heaven” to name just a few, and I started to wonder what the heck they were going to do for the encore.  I had no freaking idea what I was in for, but as the third and final encore began I was verging on delirium, and when Robert and Simon’s guitar jam session at the end of “A Forest” ended, I was ecstatic.  There have been lots of rumors that this is going to be their last tour, and if that’s the case they definitely went out on a high note.

Here is the setlist for the show:

Main Set:

• underneath the stars
• prayers for rain
• fascination street
• the walk
• the end of the world
• lovesong
• to wish impossible things
• pictures of you
• lullaby
• catch
• the perfect boy
• from the edge of the deep green sea
• the kyoto song
• hot hot hot
• the blood
• sleep when i’m dead
• push
• inbetween days
• just like heaven
• primary
• shake dog shake
• the only one
• wrong number
• one hundred years
• baby rag dog book

Encore 1:

• the lovecats
• let’s go to bed
• freakshow
• close to me
• why can’t i be you?

Encore 2:

• boys don’t cry
• jumping someone else’s train
• grinding halt
• 10:15 saturday night
• killing an arab

Encore 3:

• a forest

Lot’s more pictures are available here.

I can’t say I’m a huge Ladytron fan, and I had only heard Datarock a few times before, but I knew that I liked both groups enough and so many friends were rabid fans of Ladytron that I was pretty excited about the show.  As it was a work night, doors opened at 8p and Datarock went on not very long after that to a steadily building crowd.  Right away I remarked about how these guys were either in witness protection or were hideously ugly, as they all had on matching outfits of red hoodies and sweatpants with their hoods up and with big, black sunglasses on, and the stage lights were limited to a handful of red lights pointing stage-ish.  It didn’t take long to distract me from the mystery of their disguises, though.  Datarock put on one hell of a fun show, from choreographed dance moves on some songs, to aggressively working the crowd during others, to singalongs with the audience.  And then just when they’d thoroughly impressed me, they outdid themselves when they wrapped things up with a karaoke-inspired performance to the Dirty Dancing classic “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” that started playing at the end of their set…complete with a brilliant saxophone solo. 

By the time Ladytron was set to come on the Imperial Ballroom was packed.  As I watched the crowd buzz in anticipation, I was informed that the club had brought in a generator to handle the light show that was about to happen, something about how the light displays draw 100 amps and would blow every breaker in the joint in one pulse.  I’m glad someone brought some electricity to their show, because Ladytron didn’t.  With lights blinding and synths blazing, they put on a decent enough show, but I don’t know if they chose too good of an opener or if they put on too poor of a show.  Either way, I would have liked more Datarock.  Guess we should have stuck around, as I hear they put on a hell of a dj set after Ladytron.  However, we decided halfway into Ladytron’s set that it wasn’t worth calling in to work in the morning and headed out.

If you haven’t heard these Norse hip kids before, check out a couple Datarock tunes

Datarock- Princess
Datarock- Fa Fa Fa

Datarock on MySpace
Ladytron on MySpace

I came to know of Lyrics Born via his guest spots on Blackalicious’ albums, N.I.A. and Blazing Arrows, as well as through his remixes of R.L. Burnside’s “Goin’ Down South” and “Someday Baby” on A Bothered Mind. While I’ve know of Lyrics Born for years, I’d never managed to pick up any of his albums, so with the recent release of Everywhere At Once I decided to remedy that.

Lyrics Born comes outta Berkley, California with (imo) one of the best rap voices/deliveries in the game.  That, matched with tight beats, and then fused with hiphop, funk and a dash of electro/rock resulted in an album that is as fun as I wanted it to be and makes me wanna start scooping up his back catalog. LB, Blackalicious and the entire Quannum Projects label are what’s right with hiphop. The fact that hardly anybody knows who they are is what’s wrong.

R.L. Burnside - Goin’ Down South (Lyrics Born remix)
R.L. Burnside - Someday Baby (Lyrics Born remix)

Blackalicious - Do This My Way (feat. Lyrics Born)

Lyrics Born - Don’t Change
Lyrics Born - I Like It I Love It

Lyrics Born’s Official Site, Lyrics Born on myspace, Buy Everywhere At Once

Funny thing about heroin and rock and roll…it’s a parasitic relationship. Even while destroying the person, it’s toll and the mental anguish of addiction tends to find itself surfacing in wonderful and tortured songs…or sometimes, as is the case with RHCP, a bunch of awesome party music. While the Chili Peppers have experienced a tremendous amount of commercial success since kicking their habits, I think it can be argued that they made their best music when they were high.

I first came to know of the Chili Peppers in the 8th grade when Uplift Mofo Party Plan came out. The guy that sat in front of me in my economics class had it on cassette and let me take it home and copy it one day (that’s right kids, the double cassette boombox…the original Napster). I had never heard anything like that at the time and I was instantly in love with the band. That love has never fully vanished and to this day I buy every album they release but, outside of a handful of tracks on Californication, I’ve been largely unimpressed with anything post drugs Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic.

I’ve been packing up my house for the move (this Friday!), and while putting away my cds Uplift caught my eye and I decided to throw it in. Listening to it for the first time in years I was surprised to see how much of my passion for the album had stood the test of time. Easily the best thing the Peppers ever did. It really makes you wonder what would have come from these guys if Hillel would have lived and Jack would have stayed with the band. Uplift has pretty much been my de facto packing album this week, and it inspired me to toss Mother’s Milk and Blood Sugar in the cd changer, too, for some random action.

Turns out, my passion for Mother’s Milk really hasn’t stood the test of time as well as Uplift did, but hearing Blood, Sugar makes me feel like an 18/19 year old all over again. I can remember hearing “I Could Have Lied” for the first time and thinking the guitar solo in that song was the greatest guitar solo ever written. It does such a fabulous job of capturing the pain of the song, while keeping the simplicity of it intact. I still love to hear it.

I’ve pulled a few other cds from my rack that I have not listened to in 5+ years so maybe there will be a few more of these memory lane posts in the future.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Backwoods
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Walkin’ On Down The Road
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Organic Anti-Beat Box Band

Red Hot Chili Peppers - I Could Have Lied