Hi, I’m Meathead.  As you may recall, I’ve posted several articles here on Buddyhead over the past few weeks.   But it’s all been a sham.  I thought I could get away with it, but I soon realized that I had underestimated the intelligence of the average Buddyheadite.  I now know better, and I hope you can forgive my mistakes.

When a person, regardless of sexual orientation, logs on to the internet and surfs to Buddyhead.com, they come to be informed of the latest happenings in the music business (or “biz,” as they’re calling it these days).  People, like you, are very busy with everyday things like work, school, kids, mortgages, band practice, fixing that damn screen door again, Clive Barker novels, angioplasties, earwax, robbing Office Depot at knifepoint, potstickers, prayer meetings, getting your necktie caught in the ATM, oil changes, laundry, waterboarding, wearing form-fitting rubber suits, the Yankees, pushin’ th’ little daisies and makin’ ‘em come up, store-brand barbecue sauce, tax returns — you know, the daily grind.  You simply do not have the time to sift through a bunch of unnecessary tripe, like a photograph of Hulk Hogan on acid.  I mean, honestly, why should that even be on Buddyhead?  What does it have to do with music, or anything else for that matter?  No, you don’t want to see Hulk Hogan on acid.  You come to Buddyhead for the straight-up facts; nothing more or less.  You deserve to be presented with quality, informative writings, accompanied by relevant and visually appealing images.

When I first heard that Buddyhead was looking for new contributors for their website, I have to admit I got really excited.  I thought it would be my big chance to finally be “in with the cool crowd,” or “down with the in crowd,” or whatever their slogan is.  I’d finally have something more interesting to talk about at parties than the history of aluminum foil.  Well, first I’d actually get invited to parties, and then I’d have something more interesting to talk about while I covertly transfer the contents of the cheese platter to my jacket pockets.  I’d also get to finally have a cool haircut and maybe even get one of those wallet chains.  All I had to do was convince Aaron (North) and Travis that I’m a normal person who enjoys and knows a lot of things about music.

I have to be honest here.  I don’t really know a lot of things about music.  I mean, I know who Eddie Vedder is, but I wouldn’t say that makes me an expert, and therefore I wasn’t sure I could even be a Buddyhead writer.   But then I remembered those famous words uttered by Thomas Jefferson just before he was shot by Mexicans: “Fake it until you make it.”  So I faked it.  I wrote a letter to the Buddyhead guys telling them I know a lot of cool stuff about today’s music and that I have many rock stars’ phone numbers in my Rolodex.   As proof of my alleged expertise, I lifted a review of some popular new band from the trendy Pitchfork website and attached it, along with my résumé, to my application.   I don’t know why I thought Aaron and Travis wouldn’t catch on to my blatant plagiarism, but wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t.  Aaron wrote back a short time later to tell me I’d gotten the job!  Aaron reminded me, however, of the responsibilities that come with this prestigious job.  He told me to stick to serious music journalism only: “None of that Meathead Perspective shit here, brah, this is Buddyhead!”  Wow, it was so easy!  He even referred to me as “brah.”  I was finally a brah!

Unfortunately, due to my relatively low IQ, it didn’t occur to me until numerous hours later that I would need to find a way to maintain this façade of brahness.  Certainly I couldn’t continue stealing ideas from Pitchfork.  After giving it some earnest thought, I decided to take a break for a while, and do some Crown Royal shots while watching CNN.   Suddenly, as if by magic, I broke free from the soothing, hypnotic trance caused by the whiter-than-whiteness of Lou Dobbs’ teeth, and the thought hit me: why don’t I just try to bullshit my way through it?  It doesn’t matter what I say as long as I sound like I’m right when I say it.  I mean, it works for Lou Dobbs.

And that’s exactly what I did.  I wrote some articles which I thought would appear informative enough to pass muster at Buddyhead, then sat back and waited for the cool points to start racking up.  Boy, was I in for a surprise!  Turns out that my lack of knowledge didn’t go unnoticed, after all.  I was quickly scolded by a number of eagle-eyed readers for not doing sufficient research before critiquing hot bands like Radiohead, Phil Collins, and So-And-So and the What’s-Their-Faces.  Most recently, I attempted to review a new music video by the musical group Crystal Castles, and was immediately shot down.  Apparently I’d gotten many crucial facts wrong, things that any real journalist would have known.  I thought Crystal Castles had gotten their name from a computer game, but instead they got it from somewhere else.  Rats!  These glaring inaccuracies rendered my point, that the video sucked, completely and irrevocably moot.  And more importantly, I had tarnished the Buddyhead name that Aaron and Travis had worked so hard to build over the years.  For this, I am deeply sorry.

I can only hope that they, and you, can forgive my careless and grossly irresponsible charade, and allow me to continue my tenure here.  While I may not be as “in the know” as the rest of you, I promise that I will do my best to educate myself as much as I can before writing about the artists you hold near and dear to your hearts, lest I offend anyone yet again.  That is simply not what Buddyhead stands for.

Thank you for your understanding,

Meathead

P.S.: I was going to dedicate this column to the memory of Charlton Heston, but I don’t really want to get shot in the afterlife, so n/m.

P.P.S.: Vampire Weekend sucks so hard.  I mean what the hell.

Sorry if I made anyone upset with my last post about Radiohead.  I honestly didn’t mean to be so hard on them, seeing as how they did have some decent songs back in the 90’s.   Sure, In Rainbows may have been a complete and utter disappointment, but that certainly doesn’t mean that Radiohead doesn’t have at least one more hit in them before they’re crushed to death under the weight of their own self-importance.   I should have chosen my words a little more carefully, as we all know that Radiohead fans are an emotionally fragile bunch, and I’d hate to be responsible for yet another mass suicide.  So please accept my most sincere apologies for my lack of sensitivity.  Buddyhead deserves better.

While I’m throwing sorries around,  I’d also like to apologize to the guy who pointed out my lack of research when writing about that Provigil ad banner a couple of weeks ago.   Oh shit, busted!  I thought I could get away with it, but Inspector DZK is on the case.  Thanks for setting me straight, dude.  I bet you’re a real hit at parties.  And you’re right, Buddyhead readers don’t come here for that shit.  They come here to read the infamous gossip page watch Raconteurs videos.  In that spirit, I thought I’d talk about a video I saw on the internet today.

I log on to MySpace every now and then, mainly so they won’t delete my account for inactivity or some bullshit like that.   Inevitably, as soon as I get there, I see a plug for some new horrible flavor-of-the-week hipster band that is apparently all the rage right now but nobody will give a shit about by the time you’re done reading this sentence.  Usually I just ignore them — I mean, what’s the point of looking at hipsters if you’re not able to reach out and physically strangle them?  Maybe the next Firefox update will let me do that, but in the meantime, my only options are to A) log out of MySpace and lock myself in the closet, or B) buy some piano wire and go for a walk down Vermont Ave.

For reasons known only to the Lord Jesus Christ, I let my masochistic curiosity get the best of me this time and clicked on the latest piece of shit that MySpace is telling me to like.  It’s a video by some group with the oh-so-ironically retro-cool name “Crystal Castles.”  Yeah, Crystal Castles was an Atari game from the early 80’s.  I played it for about five minutes once, then turned it off because it was fucking retarded, and I played some Zaxxon instead.  I would bet a substantial amount of money that there’s an indie hipster band somewhere out there with that name too.  Hopefully DZK, the official Buddyhead fact-checker, will drop by soon to let us know.  Or what about Jungle Hunt?  Anybody remember that game?  Anybody want to start a band called that?

Even more idiotic than the band’s name is the name of this particular song: “Courtship Dating.”  Are you kidding me?  What in the fuck kind of dumb-ass title is that?  The kind that makes me want to click on the link just so I can have something to regret later.  So I did.  And I do.  For a brief moment as the video was loading, I felt a little guilty.  Maybe I was being unfair by judging them so harshly before even giving them a chance.  Who knows, maybe they’re actually really talented!  Maybe I was wrong about them!

Nope, I was right.  You know those songs that start out sounding kind of cool, like it’s building up to something interesting, and then it makes a hard left and immediately starts hemorrhaging gallon after gallon of suck as you frantically scramble to find the button to turn it off?   Well, “Courtship Dating” isn’t one of them.  It blows chunks right from the get-go.  Oh, what’s this?  Retro-sounding 8-bit noises?  No fucking way!  That’s so unexpected and innovative!  Like, it totally takes me back to when I was a kid with my Commodore 64, and I have fond memories of that (even though, let’s be honest, it was a piece of shit), so naturally I’ll just transfer these warm, fuzzy feelings of nostalgia onto “Courtship Dating” and enjoy that too!  I’ll ignore the fact that I can’t understand one goddamned word this dumb girl is “singing,” because I’m just so enthralled by those Nintendo-esque arpeggios!

One thing I can say in favor of this heaping helping of audio/visual tragedy is that, at least, the quality of the video is on pretty much the same level as the quality of the so-called music.  They put about as much effort into making an interesting visual accompaniment as I put into heating up a Pop-Tart.  Actually, no, fuck that, I make damn good Pop-Tarts.

It all begins with Lil’ Miss Poser in a dark room with a strobe light, half-heartedly mouthing along to the non-words that someone actually allowed her to record in a studio, while some shithead in a Slayer t-shirt (seriously? Slayer?) pretends to be rocking out with some unidentifiable object that resembles a large toothbrush.  I can only imagine that this is something they thought other people would actually enjoy watching.  This goes on for roughly 40 seconds, and then we’re treated to a shot of them performing live in front of their eight fans, accompanied by an extremely brief noise interlude that, quite frankly, is the only part of the entire song that even approaches vaguely resembling interesting.  Then it’s back to more of the same strobe light shit.  Thankfully, the question “Could this music video possibly be any less enjoyable?” is finally answered.

The answer is a resounding “YES!”  First we get another moment of pointless-as-everything-else noise (sorry, it might have worked once, but twice is pushing it), and then WOW!  It’s poser-girl standing around in the kitchen eating something.  I wish it were my excrement — maybe someday!  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone violence, especially against women, but am I the only one who gets the uncontrollable urge to beat her with a shovel just from looking at her?  I bet she likes The Killers.  Oh look, she’s drinking a can of Pepsi!  Yeah, that’s something I really want to sit and watch for an extended period of time!  Maybe she’ll defrost the freezer next! Could I please watch her cook some ramen for three minutes?  That’s what I call compelling entertainment.

Instead we get some more self-gratifying live footage and some “hey look at us, we’re out on the road touring” footage.  Honestly, this is the most unsettling thing about this video.  The thought that someone may have actually gone out of their way to see these losers, and possibly even paid for admission, causes me the kind of physical pain that can only be dulled by hard liquor and possibly an Oxycontin or two.   Then again, maybe they’re just the openers, and the audience is just humoring them while awaiting the headlining act.   I can’t really take comfort in that idea, though, because what band worth a shit would want these guys to open for them?  Goddamn it.

I guess this is the kind of stuff MySpace Tom listens to.   Look, Tom, if you want to listen to this shit in the privacy of your own home, that’s your business.  You have that right as an American (or Canadian or whatever the fuck you are).  But you really might want to keep this sort of thing to yourself.  Next thing we know, you’ll be pushing Neutral Milk Hotel on us again.

Oh, I almost forgot to share Crystal Castles - “Courtship Dating” with you guys!  How silly of me!  Here it is.  I hope it has the same effect on you as it did on me.