VH1 Is the New mtvU

What's up with MTV making movies?

Stop-Loss, the newest film to come out of the studio known less and less for actual music content, hits theaters this weekend. Ryan Phillippe will probably get naked. Money will be raked.

Varsity Blues, Aeon Flux, Joe's Apartment, Beavis and Butthead Do America: all MTV, all pieces of abject junk.

I heard that Tila Tequila is getting a full-feature package deal, slated to drop summer of '09.

Yeah, she's going to get drunk and try to have sex with the camera. Then the camera crew will get drunk and try to have sex with her while she's trying to have sex with the camera.

Boundaries will be broken.

Clothes will be piled on the floor.

MTV will probably never play music again.





*Disclaimer* I am more than likely going to see this movie, but not because Ryan Phillippe gets naked. I have no gumption and I'm a sissy coward. Plus, Ryan Phillipe gets naked, so that's cool.

Stalking

I promise that I'm not obsessed with The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

I just thought that this was highly cool. It's a music blog that managed to scrape together a playlist made up of music from the hit Nickelodeon show.

I spent five years trying to find "Falling Out of Love (With You)" by the 6ths, an oddity largely ignored by the Pete and Pete fanbase.

Very cool stuff.

Let's Mix It On Up

I’ve decided that I’m going to let ten songs shuffle and see what comes up. I’m ready for complete humiliation and will fall on my sword, if necessary.

Here goes:

“When It’s Good” by Ben Harper – I like how this is starting. Ben Harper has the voice of an angel. A male angel.

“Her Middle Name Was Boom” by Glassjaw – Gj makes me want to eat steak and punch old ladies.

“Elephants” by Portugal. The Man – This is some weird, freaky shit. Watch out now!

“Mardy Bum” by Arctic Monkeys – A jolly little romp that’ll bounce ‘bout your ‘ed.

“Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles – I have “Revolver” on my iPod, I swear…

“One Head Light” by The Wallflowers – Remember when you liked this song? You were littler.

“Fill My Pill” by Be Your Own Pet – One more plug and I get to play rhythm guitar in BYOP.

“Use of Time” by 311 – If you don’t know about “Transistor”, you don’t know a damn thing. This is some meditative trip shit.

“Eat Your Heart Up” by The Blow – This is probably the painting in the museum you don’t really understand but you stand there in front of it for a long time anyway. You posture and look smart.

“Big Drag” by Limbeck – Sleepy, dreamy, mellow mushy veggggtables.

I think this went well. I might skip a song or two depending on my mood, but overall not too shabby. Now roll on it, please.

Let's Sell Our TVs and Buy Radios

I was part of a Listener Panel for the Philly radio station 104.5 WRFF Wednesday night.

It was pretty neat. We filled out questionnaires, participated in a roundtable Q & A session, and signed blood oaths pledging that we would never listen to another radio station in the car and that we would leave the radio on at night while we sleep so that the station gets better ratings and that we would make 104.5's site our homepages and that we would throw away our iPods because the radio is the only thing that we need in our lives to make us happy and all that extra technology just clouds our better judgments.

It was a little weird.

But I DO love 104.5, they're as close to a college radio station as we're going to get on the big dial (sorry 89.7, cut that free-style jazz shit out and maybe we could talk).

I also got to add the only small change I needed to get off my chest: enough with the goddam Pearl Jam!

Roll On It!

I think my favorite reaction, when prowling through a friend’s iPod shuffle, is the transformation that takes place during criticism, this little transition, from friendly prodding to full-on guarded entrenchment.

Heels dug in and visibly offended, this iPod owner is suddenly testifying before Congress about campaign contributions. All of a sudden I’m your mother and I just found the weed stash you’ve been keeping in your old Adidas shoebox, you’re scrambling for legal footing and come up with something like this: “I can explain that…”

Problem is, there’s not much that can explain Panic! At the Disco. Hiding behind childhood gooyness doesn’t make Ace of Base suck any less, and just because that Keith Urban song reminds you of your ex-boyfriend doesn’t mean you should have any constitutional right to ever listen to it.

And this stuff gets touchy. People, myself included, don’t like to be told that the things they enjoy qualify them as intellectually and culturally stunted.

That can sting.

But hey, I’m enlightened, I’m reaching this harmonious apex of understanding, finding the ability to accept that some people will like shitty music, and they have the right and often the penchant to like said music.

So here, instead, is where I take my stand: if you can bump Rascall Flatts and Ludacris and you can enjoy it, why would and do you stop there?

Keep going.

I talked to some of my friends about how they discover music, where they find new and interesting stuff to listen to.

Most of them didn’t take me very seriously.

I got a bunch of “What do you mean?”

My buddy Mickey explained that he mainly works through mainstream channels, like MTV or popular radio stations.

“I don’t really think that I have a set method for getting music and stuff,” he explained to me. “I sort of just pick up things from friends or when I’m out, I guess.”

My friend Janie said something similar: “I just sort of know what I like when I hear it, so that part is pretty easy. I guess I’m not really sure where I do actually hear stuff, but I do.”

This is what I’m talking about. People not actively seeking music, not participating and expecting it to find them. This is a very active kind of arrangement, there is a real need to want to explore and seek things out.

When I asked about where people were going to buy music from, I got a few similar responses, summed up by my friend Christine.

“I don’t buy music… I download a lot of it, but I don’t really buy anything.”

Ok, that works. Not really a great idea (I’ll explain later), but at least it’s a start.

Just like, start pretending that the songs and artists you want to discover are the porn and gross videos we all seem to be able to track down so easily.

Get in the mindset.

Also, pick up a Rolling Stone, a copy of Filter or Under The Radar. Listen to some college radio stations! Roll on it!

Three is a Lot More Than Two

Here are three songs I'm playing and liking a lot lately:

"Music Box" by Regina Spektor – Ms. Spektor hasn't exactly been the Ambassador of Musicianship and Artistic Integrity lately (the radio-rehash and creepily narcissistic video companion to "Better", the soundtrack spotting of "That Time" in the Colin Farrell vehicle "In Bruges"), but sometimes she can sell out with the best of them, as evidenced with "Music Box", a wholly noncommercial song that turned into a JC Penny commercial spot for Fall fashions. Regina is a classically trained pianist, yet she leans heavily on funky time signatures, vocal eccentricities and what I'm sure old people would deem "quirky" lyrics. She's so punk rock.

"Supersonic" by Oasis – How easily we all forget that Oasis debuted with Definitely Maybe in 1994 and made The Beatles look like four lily English dudes who liked to hold hands and hang out with mystical gurus. "Supersonic" is everything that made Oasis great; Liam Gallagher tosses off sardonic lyrics stinking of nonchalance and a general refusal to commit to anything, while the boys chug along, fuzzed out and turned up. Grizzle be damned, this is good stuff.

"In Fact" by Gregory and The Hawk – I don't know hardly a damn thing about G and The H, and that's the way I like it. As far as I can tell, it's a girl playing an acoustic guitar and the noises that come out are pretty. "In Fact" is an unassuming adventure into whimsical fancy, clocking in at slightly over two minutes long. It opens with "Step one, light me on fire." Don't you want to know more?! Is there a step two?! Did anyone get hurt?!

Ticketmaster Is My Feudal Overlord

Ticketmaster has packed my lunch three times in the last two weeks.

I bought tickets online to see Kate Nash, Minus the Bear and Lisa Lampanelli (dirtiest and funniest woman alive).

The most egregious offense, bar none, were the Lampanelli tickets, priced at $32.50 apiece. Ok, yeah, that's not horribly expensive, my seats are pretty good.

But Ticketmaster tacks on two "convenience charges" of $9.75 for each ticket, plus an "order processing charge" of $5.15.

The final bill: $89.65.

That's $24.65 in additional charges. Almost the cost of a third ticket.

What the shit? Why am I being charged extra money for paying money?

Go to any major search engine and type in "Ticketmaster rip-offs", or some variation on the general theme, and you can get stuff like this.

It's a monopoly, a scumbag con machine bent on pillage and rape. Short of swinging by the box offices of the Trocadero, The Fillmore at the TLA (ugh, I hate even linking to Live Nation, those stupid douchebags) and Tower Theatre, respectively, I'm screwed, I'm stuck.

I'm just going to start e-mailing the Fortune 500 list my social security and credit card numbers and get this stuff over with. Preemptive strike style yo.