Absurdist Media

I Write Nonsense, Not the Tragically Anthemic.

I, Tedd Wood, have been more than guilty in the past of perhaps entertaining opinions about music/bands that fall well within the realm of "far too vehement." This was especially true from the years between 1997-2003. To my credit I have made special efforts to keep particular viewpoints on music to myself--particularly when someone is telling me how much they love The Strokes, Fall Out Boy, or Dashboard Confessional. I feel that a large portion of my improvement in this arena is due to be blindingly poor to records stores in the last nine months. My fiscal inability to stay abreast with vinyl and CD purchases has rendered me lost in a forest of nostalgia in my living room with only my previous album purchases and cunning to protect me.

However, this month all that has changed.

In previous posts I have alluded to my purchase of a Led Zeppelin DVD this summer that allotted me a free magazine subscription. While this should have been an afternoon for celebrating and wallowing in the decadence of my luck (I now owned well over three hours of Zeppelin footage from 1968-1975 in addition to receiving a free periodical) fate instead handed me a nutmeg of misfortune. I am only permitted to view my Zeppelin DVD when no one else is home because of my roommates' unwillingness to hear me ramble on (you see what I did there) about how under rated John Paul Jones' arrangements and bass lines are to the band's overall musical canon, and Chuck Klosterman--the sole reason I wanted a subscription to a fledgling-for-relevance magazine like SPIN anyway--stopped writing for the publication not but two months later.

Which brings me to the issue at hand (literally).

The latest edition of SPIN features a cover that makes me physically angry. For the past two to three weeks the band Panic! At the Disco have been staring up at me from the home of all of my apartment's monthly magazines, the bathroom floor. I've never liked this band's music. My first encounter with the gender-vague hipsters of Panic! At the Disco was via the Fuse network. "I write sins not tragedies" is quite possibly the most banal example of song writing I have encountered since the band Thursday gained their ten minutes of popularity a few years ago dismantling a levee through which groups like My Chemical Romance, Motion City Soundtrack, Taking Back Sunday, and insert nasally-aggressive-three-word-name-band here poured out of. For a solid year one of my favorite, and most frustrating, activities was to guzzle a six pack of Schlitz beer ("Just the kiss of hops!") and watch Fuse in my Greensboro home and witness the total absurdity of what was unfolding on the 32 inch box that lived on the side of the living room the couch did not. What I witnessed during the span of my six pack was that evidently this wave of "punk" rock wants to be remembered on VH1 in 10-15 years as when 80's hair metal glamour mated with new-wave chic and subsequently adopted the (lack of) musicality of Billie Joe Armstrong and his Green Day cohorts.

But I digress.

Panic! At the Disco is a terrible band, and I'm sure they are each deplorable human beings. If the cover shot from SPIN does not make you upset then I, sadly, cannot help you (or know you) anymore. It looks like Culture Club wandered into A Flock of Seagulls back stage wardrobe room, became confused as to how to exit, so both bands decided to fuck their way out and twenty years later we're stuck with a band that has an exclamation point in the middle of their damn name.

Much like my cigarette smoking Panic! At the Disco should, nay, MUST, be stopped. Who needs a drink?



-tedd-

posted by Anonymous @ 5:23 PM