Shiny Around the Edges - The Night is a Disco

More of a concept record than a collection of actual songs, Denton's Shiny Around the Edges recently released their score for David Lynch's next project, The Night is a Disco. Let's break this down a little at a time, shall we?

“Carlos Fuentes” – Just like a four-year-old reading one of Fuentes' novels, I have no idea what the point of this track really is. This feeling sets the tone for the rest of the record.

“Summer Waltz” – This sounds like a typical middle school talent show performance that other kids' parents have to sit through. Thank god for smart phones, huh?

“War Love Song” – Very apparent by its title, War Love Song goes from melodic to unbridled chaos at a moment's notice. Gee, didn't see that coming.

“Tloque Nahuaque” * – Hippie filler.

“The Weight of Sunshine is Immense” * – Instead, it should be titled “Spaceship Docking with a Music Box.”

“Quicklime” – Pretty sure they stole this song from Paper Robot and added a saxomaphone in an attempt to make it less shitty. It didn't work.

“Seven Years Between Stations” * – The soothing sounds of my Sharper Image alarm clock.

“Mexico” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIUMsgE8w8U

“Butterflies” – By this point in the record, I feel like I've already heard this song.

“Canyon Song” – I actually fell asleep at one point listening to this one. It's like the goddamn Energizer Bunny.

“Like a Blade of Grass” * – NIN filler.

“Seventeen” – Okay, I'm getting really bored with this record. Please tell me it's over soon.

“Reading Scripts” – And just as slowly as it began, the album creeps towards the finish line, with a definitive voice, but without any real direction.

* - These tracks aren't really songs. Just the filler/glue that holds this student art project together.

DOMA 2012

OK, so the DOMAs came and went again and, as usual, it was a big fucking jerk-off fest. Each year the area's “biggest” acts are all hand-picked for us by a board of “taste-makers” that we get to vote for. Everyone votes multiple times for whatever it is they remember reading about the most on said taste-makers' sites. Then, “winners” are declared, thus proving that what we've been reading about must really be great. This process is repeated annually, and the ones that know how to play the game spin this into national attention so that they don't have to show up next year. Yes, Jaffe, that means you. So let's take a moment to talk about a few of this year's acts that we may or may not ever hear from again.

Sarah Jaffe – Best Album, Best Solo Act, Best Video & Best Female Vocalist

You know how much we love Sarah around here. It came as no surprise that she won every single category that she was nominated for (even for the video, but let's be honest, that thing was boring). The thing is, I don't think she gives a shit. She's already bigger than Dallas and I predict that she will be moving away sooner or later. She's made no mention of her multiple wins online. Once this Conan thing airs, she'll be gone and we'll be running around, trying to find our next big thing to claim as our own. Grow up DFW--it looks like she finally did.

Mind Spiders – Best Song & Best Punk Act

I'm afraid to say anything about these guys, for fear that they might kick my ass. I don't really have anything against these guys. They're doing well for themselves and how hard is it to play punk rock? I mean, this award could've gone to any of Mark Ryan's bands and I wouldn't have known the difference.

The O's – Best Roots/Americana Act

These two are just plain boring. I can't get into it. If you dig them, they're begging for money, so go give them some here.

Power Trip – Best Hardcore Act

Music to kill braincells to.

The Breakfast Machine – Best Rock Act

This is a rock band? The Spice Girls were heavier than this pop-garbage.

Hares on the Mountain – Best Folk Act

If all you have to do to win Best Folk Act is convince a group of skilled musicians to back you in your tune-less, drunken rantings about nothing in particular, then look for fudfw to win this category next year.

The Cannabinoids - Best Funk/R&B Act

Gee, the band Erykah Badu is mildly associated with won the award? You're joking...

Petra Kelly – Best Instrumentalist

I hate all of your bands. I think. I'm not sure how many you're in now.

Pinkish Black – Best Metal Act

Whenever I see these guys, I close my eyes and pretend that it's Fantômas doing an interpretation of The Phantom of the Opera. Now if that's not metal...



a.Dd+ – Best Group Act



Wrong again. Check out what we think of their new single here.



The Gorehounds – Best Cover Band



This award is celebrating the best at being unoriginal. Good job!



35 Denton – Best Festival



The best thing about 35 Denton is not having to drive to Austin to see the same bands. The worst thing about 35 Denton is everything else: the (mostly) expected lineups, the awful cover videos, how seriously it takes itself, etc., etc. I thought Denton was proud of not being Austin. Guess I was wrong.



Magnificent Beard - Best Poster Artist/Screenprinter



Although this has to be the lamest category, they got this one right. That Wu-Tang poster owns.



Jason Elmore – Best Blues Act
Cutter – Best Electronic Act
My Wooden Leg – Best None of the Above
Mariachi Los Unicos de Greiner - Best Latin/Tejano Act
Leon the Professional – Best Mixtape
Blackstone Rangers – Best New Act



I've never heard of any of you. Probably for the best.



DJ Sober – Best DJ
New Fumes – Best Experimental Act
Daniel Hart – Best Male Vocalist
Burning Hotels – Best Pop Act
Yells at Eels – Best Jazz Act
Somebody's Darling – Best Country Act
Good Recordings - Best Label
Salim Nourallah – Best Producer
Parade of Flesh - Best Talent Buyer
Good Records - Best Record Store
The Paul Slavens Show, KKXT-FM 91.7 - Best Radio Show
The Granada Theater – Best Venue
The Foundry – Best New Venue



I've heard of you, but either you or your category is so lame that I didn't want to waste my time.

a.Dd+ - Suitcases

How can a.Dd+ claim that other people's shit is “too plain for [them]” when they rap about being “fly” and how they need their “bread to rise”? The grandstanding of hip-hop just seems a little played out nowadays. I thought people were turning to local talent because the radio had failed them, not just because they wanted more of the same at a discount. Oh well. Hey guys, the reason you're still residing in your mom's living room just might be that you don't have anything “fucking brilliant” to say after all. You might just want to unpack and settle in for a while.

Wiccans - Field II

This is everything I loved about music when I was in high school and everything that made my parents worried that I was a crack-addicted fucktard. It is unintelligible, infectious and loud. This album gets our highest recommendation if you want to be a punk rock Peter Pan. If you've already grown up, then buy it anyway so they can afford to move to Austin and leave me the hell alone.

Team Tomb - s/t

Pretentious. Team Tomb. Caleb Ian Campbell. Three different ways to say the same thing. Between the Peopleodianesque loops, the incessant falsetto and the incomprehensible lyrics, you get the feeling that Team Tomb wants you to know that they are way better than you, but don't want you to be able to figure out why. I'm gonna bet that it's just a front. The singers' vocals are dreamy and distorted to obscure their inability to sing. The lyrics are buried under the uninspired sounds to hide the fact that there isn't a narrative here—and the song titles we're just made up and slapped on to sound cool: (“Put a bird on it!”). The overall musical landscape just doesn't go anywhere too interesting. I'd liken the listening of this album to masturbating for an hour without climaxing. It might be OK here and there, but, c'mon, what's the point?

The Treelines - EP & Dream House b/w Pact

Why do these people (read: Ryan Becker, Tony Ferraro and Grady Sandlin) keep playing in bands together? This EP is just proof that they have gotten too comfortable together (read: lazy). It's so simple, sweet and straightforward that it crosses right over into boring. The music sounds like filler used to kill time while people tune on-stage. And nothing against vocalist Amanda Newton (read: I hate you), but couldn't they have at least tried to find someone that wasn't just already sitting around with them. Maybe someone with a bit more punch to lively things up. I know that she wrote the lyrics, but she could have handed them over to New Science Projects' Dale Jones. I know the guys have played with him before. Not that it would have made the songs any better, but it might have at least been more interesting. Maybe they'll do better next time.

Nope, they didn't. If your own songs are boring, what should you do? Release a cover from a band that sounds painfully similar to you and back it with an audio experiment that sounds like a four year old made it on their Speak & Spell? No. That's the opposite of what you should do. The silver lining in this waste of plastic is that it seems Amanda has run out of things to say and this will be the last we hear from them. M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶'̶l̶l̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶.̶ Maybe they'll kill themselves.

Fairbanks - Pipe Dream

Oh boy! Three chord pop punk with lyrics about anger and disillusionment! This is the most original music I have ever heard in my life! It's like they know me and understand everything I'm going through with my parents and my teachers and my bitch of an ex-girlfriend!

I can't wait until these kids get out of high school and life bitch slaps them to the ground.

Father Figure - tape

Father Figure is live recordings of three guys with severe tourettes that have instruments hot glued to their hands. Please don't make fun of them. It's not their fault that Michael Briggs did that to them.

Nervous Curtains - Fake Infinity

Upon first listen, I thought that this sounded like something I'd heard before. No, I'm not referring to the obvious synth and industrial artists that Nervous Curtains owes their sound to. This was something else, something that jogged an immediate response buried somewhere in my memory. After hours of going through my music collection, trying to find out why this sounded so damn familiar, I gave up. A few days later, I realized where I'd heard it before when my grandmother sent me a link to something that I “had to watch!” Thanks for solving the mystery, Granny!

Summer of Glaciers - Small Spaces

I know I haven't posted in a while, and Summer of Glaciers is the reason. It it physically impossible to stay awake for the entirety of this album. I think the guys over at Gutterth could make a fortune selling this as a new age sleep aide. But since we're pretending it's music, I'll go ahead and translate these songs titles for you so you can better understand the material.

1. Inches Mean Miles – these 3 minutes feel like an eternity
2. To the Ground – where I threw the CD after I came out of my coma
3. Elevators – that don't go anywhere
4. Monologues – one guy pointlessly rambling on
5. Removal – it just keeps growing, like cancer. Cut it off
6. When We Part – I will hate you
7. The Use of Mirrors (exclusive download-only track) – This piece of shit didn't make it on the album

Bad Design - s/t & Darstar - Tiny Darkness

This past weekend I had the misfortune of letting my friend drag me to a show where I had to be surrounded by idiots and listen to not one, but four awful bands. I've already told you what I think of Hormones and Here Holy Spain is just too easy of a target, so let's take a look at two of DFW's “rising stars.” 

Bad Design was unimpressive live, but I figured I'd give them a chance to see if they were better studio musicians. They're not. The first thing you can pick out is John Gillespe's guitar work—the same guitar work that made Dear Human too fucking annoying to not catch Gutterth's ear a couple years ago. Then the singer's vocals come in, anguished and forced like he's trying to take a shit. He'll probably blow his vocal chords out after a few more shows and I won't have to worry about a sophomore album. If not, then they can drop “Design” from their name, because clearly there isn't any.

Darstar is everything that was wrong with music in the 90s: Accessible pop-rock with no real innovation or passion that's been pasted over with somebody's misguided idea of “edge” in the form of distorted guitars, militant drums and a sexy female lead singer. If the 90s revival keeps heading the way that it is, these guys will probably be huge with the 102.1 listeners in a few years. That said, I'm gonna go ahead and write them off as a waste of time. “Fuck these stupid bitches.”

Glass Caverns - s/t

I once spent an entire week in my room listening to nothing but Phil Collins. Then I made this record.

Brack Cantrell has a great voice, (yes, I can say nice things) so I don't know why he's buried it underneath the music or run it through effects. I understand that being in Sundress must have been incredibly fucking boring. You'd expect the one person in the band with some form of talent to have a decent solo project. Maybe the rest of them have rubbed off on him.

And, yes, I know that sentence brings up a disturbing mental picture, but hey, guys get bored on tour. Things happen. I'm not judging, but I will offer a reward to anyone with photos of this. I need content.

Bobgoblin - Love Lost For Blood Lust: Part I

I can't decide what's worse: the music, the lyrics or the fact that Bobgoblin take themselves so seriously; so we'll use the patented fudfw point system to determine why we hate them so much.

The Music

• pop-punk (-10)
• “whoas” (+3)
• keyboard sounds borrowed from The Rentals (+1)
• occasionally borrowed voice of Anthony Kiedis (-5)
• complete lack of balls (-5)

The Lyrics

• the entirety of Feel No Pain (-5)
• “Stomp and Go! Prescribe and Conquer! Through the Skies, through Veins, through Water!” (+2)
• use of the words “twas” and o'er” (-2)
• using a eulogy as lyrics (-4)
• robotic voice-over at the end of the record (-2)
• a 16-year-old's vocabulary (-4)

Self-Importance

• needing a setting and back story for a 6-track EP (-5)
• thinking that you're from the future (+2)
• the descriptions at the beginning of each song to let you know what the fuck they're singing about and why (-15)
• the fact that they thought they had enough to say that they put out an album after a 14-year hiatus (-10)
• the fact that it's part 1 of 2 (-500)

Well, there you have it folks. Clearly the worst thing about this record is that it was made by Bobgoblin, a band that should have died in some sort of pyrotechnics accident a long time ago.

Bravo Zulu - all our days...

This record sounds phoned in, as if the band didn't put any effort into it. But I'm sure it's hard work to create original songs entirely ripped off from the Casio keyboard presets. Seriously, check out the opening sequence. It was clearly inspired by the dance scene from The Breakfast Club. That's ok. I don't expect much these days. The album was produced by one of the guys from Old Snack, so the fact that all of the songs don't sound exactly the fucking same was a huge shock.

Mystery Skulls - EP

This is what Prince sounds like when you lock him in an arcade with a steady diet of crystal meth and acid.

Seryn - Seryn and Friends Christmas

I'm going to be honest with you—I never listened to this whole record. I couldn't find a way to download it for free, and I couldn't justify the $8 price tag just to hear this “non-Christian” band sing about Christ. Seriously, if I were Jesus, I'd be offended. That's like saying “Happy birthday, Jesus! Thanks for dying for our sins! Check out this [shitty] indie-pop we made you! Our friends in An Absence of Color told us you would like it.” Couldn't these guys find another way to make a quick buck off of an already commercial-laden religious holiday? Just go steal from the collection plate at your local church. More people go in December anyway and it would keep me from having to hear your versions of Christmas songs when all I wanted was to get a cup of coffee and sit in heavenly peace.

No, We Can't Be Friends

Fate Lions - Natural Champion / Hold Me 7” EP

I think the reason Fate Lions put out a 7-inch instead of a full album is because they only have one song. I'm pretty sure the b-side is just the a-side sped up. With how commercial this sounds, that's not a bad idea. Just make one hit and keep feeding it to the masses. It's weird to think that some of the shitty bands you hear on Clear Channel stations started off as shitty local bands, determined to sell out and go big. Hopefully they'll get signed by a major label soon so that Jason can go ahead and fatally OD in some hotel room while on tour with Foo Fighters.

Achtöne! - s/t

I was in the waiting room at the dentist last week and I was forced to watch a half-hour of CSI on mute, while a toddler loudly smashed random toys against each other. Now I won't say that listening to the Achtöne! record was by far the most annoying waste of 30 minutes in my life, but I think these two instances made me produce identical sets of brainwaves. Just because you own instruments does not mean that you should start a band. Likewise, because you release an EP does not mean that anyone will care.

I know I don't.

Tony Ferraro - Assemble the Bitch Wolves b/w Diaspora

The latest effort from Tony Ferraro is two songs that sound like they didn't make the final cut for that Last Joke record. “Assemble the Bitch Wolves” doesn't go anywhere even remotely interesting, unless you count the toy piano solo in the middle (which I don't). Lyrically, it reminds me of high school poetry, full of banality and tired imagery. I'm picturing him at the talent show, a handful of scraps from his notebook, just reading his prose while his friends, whose parents bought them instruments for Christmas, fumble through a hackneyed set. “Diaspora,” on the other hand, is as upbeat and rockin' as you can get for an original tune from a Counting Crows cover band. How old is this guy, anyway? Let's wrap this up with a quick track-by-track breakdown:

“Assemble the Bitch Wolves”: Boring

“Diaspora”: Pathetic