A fun past time for the GSHA music set - fictional band album art

Here is a way to blow some time that I discovered recently on a variety of blogs, such as this one and this one. It is a way to create a fake album cover for a fake band that you make! Follow these instructions and you will waste a ton of time, giggling, sighing, or wishing that these bands existed. If you dream it, they will come to your house and rock!

Your band name comes from a random Wikipedia article and your album title comes from the last 4 words of the last quote from a random quotation and your album art is the third on this page of random Flickr photos.

Slap it all together and you get something like this:

Martorell - they're a zeitgeisty tour-de-force that combines the post-punk intensity of Joy Division, the dual lyricism of Bernie Taupin and Lou Reed, and the full-on feedback assault of the Jesus and Mary Chain, all nicely piled up together in a sunshine pop and vocal-harmonizing wrapping of the Osmonds. Check them out this spring on tour, if you can. Enjoy!

The first Variegated Brainstem Music collection

Hello, loyal viewers! The Veeb has issued its first soundtrack CD, entitled Make the Madness Stop. It contains a variety of psyche-skewing songs for your musical aggrandizement. Tracks on this first of several collection include:

1. Stereo Phase Test - Man Or Astroman (01:04)
2. Magic People - The Paupers (02:45)
3. At The Mountains Of Madness - HP Lovecraft (04:58)
4. I Put Spell On You - Arthur Brown (03:45)
5. The year of the sun - The Gordian Knot (03:02)
6. my mind - The Misunderstood (02:35)
7. Spiral Galaxy 28948 - Hawkwind (03:47)
8. Through My Eyes - The Creation (03:07)
9. Lysergic Bliss - Of Montreal (04:04)
10. I'm A Nut - (01:02)
11. Bottle Of Wine - Fireballs (02:11)
12. Cup Of Jesus - Joel R. Cooper (02:26)
13. Sardinia - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers (02:14)
14. I live for the sun - The Sunrays (02:28)
15. Laughing Stock - Love (02:32)
16. A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off - The Magnetic Fields (02:42)
17. The Third Eye - The Dovers (02:17)
18. Happy - The Sunshine Company (01:58)
19. Trouble - Lindsey Buckingham (03:49)
20. Me - The Brain Train (02:25)
21. Groovy Summertime - The Love Generation (02:24)
22. White Cat Heat - The Godz (02:12)
23. Something In 4/4 Time - Daryl Hall (04:27)
24. You Keep Hanging up on My Mind - Wendy & Bonnie (02:59)
25. Watch out for Me Ronnie - Yo La Tengo (03:02)
26. Some People Never Know - We All Together (04:21)
plus a secret or too!

Not to toot our horns here at the VCC (Veeb Central Control), but we are pleased at how this CD flows, making everything from dish-washing to the daily commute to encounters with the rhino-hive mind something to look forward to! Drop us a line if you would like a copy. Enjoy!

Tribute to an important influence...

Those of you that know me know that I spent time in Alaska and thoroughly enjoyed it. During my stay there, I was privileged to work with several interesting individuals that helped shape me into the lean, mean, historigraphical machine that I have become. One in particular was Mr. C. Scott Fry, whose video is presented above. Among his many brush strokes on my canvas (nothing sexual), he introduced me to Beck's beer and Tom Waits, as well as granted me my increased ability to consume alcohol - note the numerous scenes of drunken pontificating and cursing throughout the video (apologies to those with virgin ears). I even have the old guitar and guitar case that he gave me, which I use to screech out tragic paeans to love lost and love won. While many of the Veeb's viewers will be disinterested, perhaps, the best part of the video is to showcase the interior of the beloved Alaskan Hotel and Bar with C. Scott Fry, where he was my manager. So, without waxing too poetic about him, I give you the man, the myth, and the legend!

A weird dream...

Last night, I dreamed, among other things, that someone had spelled the word "SPORK" using my white tube socks on my bed spread. That was tame; the rest of the dream was Jacob's Ladder-esque...

My ultimate solipsistic enterprise - Mike's Super Seven, the heaviest rock band in the entire universe!

My parents recently gave me some old pictures that I drew as a wee lad. Among the silliness was this one, circa probably 1977:Apparently, my conception of rock and roll at that time included the notion that capes were very important to rock bands, as well as a thunderbolt motif (probably influenced from the Shazam television show I religiously watched on Saturday mornings). I don't know exactly what type of music this band was playing, but I assume it was The Carpenters + Kiss + Queen + Manfred Mann's Earth Band. I would like to think that I was drawing a Roxy Music / MC5 type band with an intense political anarcho-syndicalist message incorporated in their searing lyrics, but they really have an Osmonds vibe going, don't you think? My secret shame...

Anomie and me...there is no need to parade my problems

I've got that post-semester anxiety brewing. I want to be out and doing something that I can't put my finger on; I'm on the wrong side of every door. I want to read and enjoy fun books, but history has killed that ability in me. I want to see something that I've never seen, but I don't need or want to invest in chemical enlightenment (especially with the price of gas being what it is). I want to experience something I've never experienced, but I am low on funds and what funds I do possess have been earmarked for Mistress Clio, the bitch goddess of History. Fear not - I may sound like an angsty tweener, but I will not bore you with poems about my feelings and my desire to be understood!

So, I suppose that I will just have to leave you with a video that best expresses the deep dark feelings and desires and moods and passions that lurk beneath my troubled and fretting brow. Enjoy!

AYBABTU pre-production notes #2

Those of you in the know about Derek and Clive will agree that their brand of humor MUST make it into AYBABTU! Just think of it, a exchange between ape guards in our show, talking with the prisoners in the Village, dropping the F and C bombs every 3 seconds!

"Shut up, you f@&king c#nt stinking filthy human!" "This f@&king hairless c%nt human is acting like a f#%king stupid c&nt, you f%$king ape c%nt b&stard!" "Piss off, you f%cking c%nt gorilla!"

AYBABTU pre-production notes #1

I think that the first issue of this particular idea that needs to be addressed is the type of aliens necessary for such an idea as the one proposed in the previous post. The original V used reptilian humaniods as the alien form. This does not seem to go with our GSHA ideas, does it? It has to be apes! And not just any apes, but aquatic apes, that look like the Planet of the Apes apes! But here is a twist I propose: they are actually, underneath, like the alien from The Thing! We don't know who is the ape and who is the warder (emphasizing the Prisoner aspects all the more). This could also, from a financial production point of view, be used to cut down on the amount of money needed to create an entire army of aquatic apes (make-up, rubber prosthetic pieces, the whole ape look). Instead, they could look like normal people, who are actually apes (aquatic) underneath, who are actually The Thing-type creatures underneath! The creative juices are flowing and there's no stopping them, ladies and gentlemen; I feel like I've got a diesel truck battery strapped to my nads!

Great idea for new TV series!

It is rare that I pat myself on the back for my own brilliance. Indeed, I'm usually suprised at how dense I can be. However, while avoiding doing my work for school, I had the most amazingly intense fit of creative juicing since I was first inclined to start this stupid blog. What I have imagined is a new sci-fi adventure series that combines The Prisoner with V: The Miniseries. This idea has limitless possibilities, especially if set in Knoxville, using the Sunsphere as the new command post for the new Village, whatever that might end up being (we need a good session at the Bean to work out all the details). Here's the brilliant part: the show could be titled All Your Base Are Belong To Us! I'm anxious to hear from all you out there in the webosphere what you think. I think I'm onto something really special...

Or is this the greatest song? I can't decide...

You think that you've seen the best there is to see from the best there was (The Osmonds), and then you find a gem like this! If I found a clip of them on the Lawrence Welk Show, I'd probably have a heart attack!

As is immediately apparent, The Osmonds were a direct influence on later bands, like Man or Astro-Man? from Alabama. It is so obvious, I'm suprised no one else has noticed this...

Perhaps the greatest song of all time...

It's hard not to have a life-changing experience with The Osmonds. And yet, the more I listen to this song, the more I realize that The Osmonds were the progenitors of funk, punk, new wave, death metal, grunge, and alternative country. And, listening to the lyrics of this song demonstrates how they took the lyricism of Dylan and just ran, like crazy horses, into territory uncharted and exciting, on the edge of avant garde insanity! "Crazy horses all got riders and they're you and I!" The answer to it all, my friends, is right there!