It’s no secret that I think Taxi Violence is one of SA’s most talented and badass bands currently playing, just read my review of their last album here and my write up of their Synergy 2011 performance here.
There’s just something about this band that connects with my deep, dark, whisky-drinking soul y’know? The desert / southern rock / blues influence definitely has something to do with it, that shit really speaks to me.
So I was pretty stoked to find out that they’re about to drop a new album in July called Soul Shake which you can bet your ass I’ll be reviewing here on the site soon as I can get my filthy mitts on it.
In the meantime though, here’s their first single “Brainmash†which I can almost guarantee you’ll be humming for the rest of today.
I’ll say one thing for 2013, it’s turning out to be a pretty radass year it terms of cool shit coming out (wait, that didn’t come out right… wait, nor did that…)
Not only have some of my favourite bands released albums (Queens Of The Stone Age, The National, Iron & Wine, The Strokes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), but they’ve all been pretty damn good.
Then, later this year I’ll be releasing a little creating of my own in the form of a little Tiger cub, which I’m also hoping will be pretty rad and lastly, there’s ARMIKROG!
I dunno if any of you guys remember the Earthworm Jim games from the 90s? Or how about the fucking INSANE point and click adventure The Neverhood? Well the guys responsible for those games have teamed up again to create another gaming masterpiece, also all done in claymation called Armikrog.
Shit like this gets me pretty fired up. I’m a sucker for those old point and click adventures – the Sierra Quest games (Space Quest, King’s Quest, Quest for Glory), the Lucas Arts classics (Day Of The Tentacle, Indiana Jones, Sam & Max, Full Throttle), shit even the Legend Of Kyrandia games were pretty cool.
But my all time favourites (of all time) were Grim Fandango and The Neverhood. In fact, a little-known fact about your Tiger pal is that I played and finished The Neverhood religiously once a year for five years.
Then I lent it to a buddy and never saw it again. About time I got my hands on a copy now that I think about it…
I loved that game because it combined fiendishly difficult puzzles with this beautiful / bizarre clay-made world and a story that was so rich, detailed and epic that actually completing the game was a fucking spiritual experience!
I mean how can it not be when the final line of dialogue spoken by the God and creator of The Neverhood after you save him is: “Listen up everybody! It’s now time to goof off!â€
Also, the soundtrack to the game was so good, years later I actually downloaded the entire thing and played it on infinite repeat in my car.
Armikrog looks like it’s going to have all that epic gaming goodness and more, check out the video below:
So THAT’S what John Heder’s been up to. Huh. Who knew…
Needless to say, I’m donating my $20 to the making of that game. It’s well worth it and they’ll definitely reach their target or all my faith in humanity will literally evaporate overnight.
Hopefully the next you’ll be reading about this will be my review.
Unless you’ve actually played the online game “Surgeon Simulatorâ€, which I posted about / reviewed here, the video you’re about to see is not going to make any sense whatsoever.
If you don’t have the time to click that link, read the (very brief) post and actually play ‘Surgeon Simulatorâ€, then let me quickly sum the entire game up on a sentence or two.
Basically, your goal is to perform a heart transplant by guiding the surgeon’s hand (controlled by the mouse), picking up surgical instruments (the keys ‘a’, ‘w’, ‘e’, and ‘r’ control the pinkie, ring, middle and index fingers respectively while space controls the thumb) and hoping for the best.
The utterly useless control system and piss poor in-game physics make this feat pretty much impossible but make for a hilarious gameplay experience because it’s literally like trying to control someone who’s been binge-drinking petrol.
Anyway. Here’s what surgeon simulator gets up to on his day off.
Aaaaaahhhh, so funny if you’re one of only a handful of people who has actually played the game and shares my deranged sense of humour.
Woah, woah, woah. Before you come at me brandishing your goddamn pitchforks and blazing torches, let me explain something to those of you who don’t read this site often / have never been here before.
Queens Of The Stone Age is my favourite band of all time. And no, this isn’t some fleeting conclusion I came to last week because I decided to listen to some of their stuff ahead of their new album launch.
If my life were a movie, Queens Of The Stone Age would do the soundtrack. Josh Homme is one of the most talented and underrated musicians currently alive. How obsessed am I with this man? Have a seat, I’ll get you a beer…
I got my hands on Songs For The Deaf in varsity, back in ‘02 and something clicked in my brain that never clicked back, something changed, something came alive.
Within a year I’d tracked down their self-titled first album and Rated R (which, 11 fucking years later I still can’t get enough of). But that wasn’t enough.
When I found out Homme had first cut his teeth in the 90s desert / stoner rock / grunge band Kyuss, I started hunting down every album they did as well.
I followed everything Homme did after that faithfully – the QOTSA albums Lullabies to Paralyse and Era Vulgaris, all three Eagles Of Death Metal albums and of course the fucking amazing album he did with Grohl and John-Paul Jones, Them Crooked Vultures.
So you can imagine how excited I was to hear their new stuff after six years of waiting for a new QOTSA album. That might be the fuck-up right there, I’ve built it up too much in my head already, but regardless, I’ve tried to come at this from as neutral a position as I can considering everything I’ve said above.
If you follow the music press, you will have seen that over the course of last week, QOTSA were releasing these creepy, fucked up animated videos with teasers of some of the tracks that will appear on their new album …Like Clockwork.
After the final teaser video was released, they made the whole 15 minute video available to watch (posted below).
Having watched the video a number of times, I still can’t say whether I actually like it or not, which is weird. You’d think I’d love the shit out of this just based purely on the fact that I’m obsessed with this band.
I think the problem with the video is I find it pretty nasty and brutal, which normally wouldn’t be a problem for me if it at least had some deeper meaning or purpose, but either I’m too dof to figure it out or it just is what it is – siff, violent, disturbing scenes for the sake of them.
As for the music itself, it’s kinda depressing and sorely lacking the ballsy, robot rock riffs that make this band awesome.
Anyway, here’s the video for you to decide for yourself:
All that really resonated with me throughout the entire 15 minute clip above were the words, “The end is really fucking nigh†because if this is what the entire album sounds like then yeah. I can’t argue there.
Having said that though, these tracks have grown on me quite a bit the more I listen to them, so let’s not drop the guillotine just yet.
My album review will be up shortly after …Like Clockwork lands.
I don’t watch a lot of TV. In fact, at the time of writing this I don’t even have a television. I have a gigantic flat screen monitor on which I watch movies and series, but not TV, I hate TV.
So I have no idea if South African TV has as many infomercials as it used, the ones that loop to in those dark, ungodly hours when you really should be asleep.
HOWEVER, if you’ve ever been to the States, you’ll know that TV over there is fucking SATURATED with infomercials and my god! They are so awful they’re practically begging to be ripped off.
Enter “Jaboody Dubs†– a group of Youtubers who dub shitty infomercials and make them so creepy, weird and awesome I cracked up completely watching them.
I always maintained that a bong is like the heroine equivalent of getting stoned; a quick, intense hit that leaves you pretty much incapacitated if executed correctly.
It’s literally been years since I dipped into the mahangajanga, but I still clearly remember (sort of) what it felt like and how, after four or five at most, my perception of reality became somewhat skewed.
Keep this up for about ten years and you’ll reach the level of the people you’re about to see in this video. They practise a martial art called “Yellow Bamboo†which is a “Balinese White Magic and an art of self-development, protection and healingâ€.
In other words, smoke 12 bongs a day for as long as it takes to believe that you can create a shield of pure energy around you to protect you from your enemies, then go try it out your new-found superpower with your stoner buddies at the lake.
Yeah. I think we all know what happens next…
I don’t know what’s funnier – the fact that these people actually believe this shit, or the fact that one of them is called MAGNUS.
Have a killer weekend Party People, see ya’ll on Monday.
It’s still a kinda catchy tune though and it’s brought to you by Schmoyoho, the guys who did the original Antoine Dodson track and pretty much invented the autotuned news genre.
I’m sure by now you guys have seen the news interview with Charles Ramsay, the unlikely hero who discovered his neighbour was abducting young women and keeping them locked in his house, some for as long as TEN FUCKING YEARS! Well, if you missed it here’s the original report and autotuned version.
Dig it:
Kinda cool. Guy looks well stoned, but seems like he’s a decent enough guy right? Salt of the earth type, just a dude doing the right thing at the right time.
Here’s the autotune:
Kinda catchy. Not my favourite that’s fo damn sure, but yeah.
“We eat RIBS with this dude!â€
Impressive considering they turned this around in about 1 day.
Jesus. I actually have no idea how to describe what I’ve just seen and almost feel bad re-posting it here for you, my poor unsuspecting readers, to have to try to deal with.
Ducks, as it turns out, are extremely, extremely fucked up. You know the famous expression “fuck a duck� Probably not seeing as I invented it… but anyway, long story short, do not EVER fuck a duck. EVER.
What you’re about to see is two things 1) Expertly narrated by Morgan Freeman and 2) the very stuff nightmares are made of. I am not being over dramatic here, think very carefully before you watch this because it will destroy your perception of ducks forever.
Good luck watching this soldier. I’ll be right here when it’s over, probably also staring at my screen in total disbelief.
Here goes…
Yeah. What the actual fuck.
I’m going home to scrub myself raw with steel wool and rubbing alcohol.
There’s a badass story about Hunter S Thompson when he was covering the campaign trail back in ‘72 and he gave his press pass to this raging maniac he met on a train.
This guy then used the pass to get access into this high profile press conference with all these presidential candidates where he proceeded to heckle the shit out of them and act like a total maniac.
The point of this whole story is that I can’t make the #5GumExperience here in CT on Saturday, so I’m giving my tickets away to one lucky reader to attend the event on my behalf and act as a Gonzo journalist for the site.
It’s a pretty sweet gig – all you gots to do is take lots of pics and tell me what it was like afterwards so I can put a post on the site, crediting the shit out of you and making you look like a total badass.
In return you get to watch The Kooks playing songs like this one LIVE right before your eyes!
To win the tickets, hit up the comments section below and explain what your understanding of the term “Gonzo journalism†is in no more than 3 sentences and I’ll pick a winner at 1.30pm tomorrow.
As always, you’ll get bonus points for getting a chuckle out of your Tiger pal OR promising to wear some kind of Tiger hat / onesie at the gig.
In a lot of ways this video goes directly against the laws of nature – grannies are supposed to be sweet and docile, they’re supposed to knit and bake cookies and read bedtime stories to the grandkids.
But not Gangster Granny. Gangster Granny is here to do two things, which you will learn about shortly when the audition tape you’re about to see gets to that bit.
Bottom line is I very much doubt we’ll be seeing Gangster Granny at the movies anytime soon. I just really wander about the people who write this shit – I mean surely they can do better than a script about an ass-kicking granny!
“I came here for two things, to suck some hard candy and suck some dicks!â€
Err… not quite. Nice try though.
Can’t fault these ladies for trying. Especially the red (orange?) head who looks like she escaped from a loony bin.
It’s no secret that I think Taxi Violence is one of SA’s most talented and badass bands currently playing, just read my review of their last album here and my write up of their Synergy 2011 performance here.
