Fair Warning: Greatest Thing You've Ever Seen

February Wants Some!! is The Heavy Duty's month-long celebration of the mighty Van Halen. We'll be writing a post loosely based on each VH album in sequential order. Enjoy! 


By Matthew Timmons

We can all argue until we're blue in the face about which Van Halen song is the "best," but for my money (I have no money) "Unchained" is the unquestioned riff champion of the greater VH universe. You can have your favorites, and I'm sure they're pretty bad-ass and rocking and headbanging and such, but look into your heart and admit it. Deep down you know it's true, your heart beats for "Unchained," that huge Drop-D thundering locomotive, chugging and kick-punching its way across the rock and roll landscape and into your very soul. Super thick and burly, and yet somehow still nimble, "Unchained" is Lou Ferrigno in Swan Lake. Okay, I'm being a bit overblown here, but that riff is better than most bands entire careers.

Gtr I

E   +E  E E E E E E E   +E  E E E E E E E   Q  E E E E E  E
|---|-------------------|-------------------|------------------|
|-7-|-(7)-8-----------3-|-(3)-4p3---5-6p5---|-7--8---------10--|
|-7-|-(7)-7-----------3-|-(3)-3-----5-------|-7--7---------10--|
|-7-|-(7)-7-----------3-|-(3)-3-----5-------|-7--7---------10--|
|-5-|-(5)-5-------------|-------------------|-5--5----------8--|
|---|-------0-0-0-0-0---|---------0-------0-|------0-0-0-0-----|


   +E   E  E  E  E  E E E   Q  E E E E E E   +E  E E E E E E E
|-------------------------|----------------|-------------------|
|-(10)-11-10----10--8-----|-7--8---------3-|-(3)-4p3---5-6p5---|
|-(10)-10-10----10--9-----|-7--7---------3-|-(3)-3-----5-5-----|
|-(10)-------10----10-----|-7--7---------3-|-(3)-3-----5-5-----|
|--(8)--------------------|-5--5-----------|-------------------|
|---------------------0-0-|------0-0-0-0---|---------0-------0-|

One thing that always gnaws at my noggin is how all the 80's shredders born out of Eddie's flying fingers somehow forgot half the equation and didn't even sniff his guitar riff writing prowess. Some guys might have matched his speed or his tapping technique, but nobody (nobody!) came close to matching his playing chops or the pure rock and roll grittiness of Fair Warning and "Unchained." George Lynch, Yngwie, Paul Gilbert, and their ilk, all monster players with great skill, but they've got no riffs you can hang your hat on. You can learn all the notes and what order to play them, but that doesn't mean you know how to rock. And to this self-proclaimed riffwhore, that's where the greatness starts. All the wheedly hair-blown pyrotechnics are great, but if the foundation isn't solid you've lost me. And for all of Eddie's technical brilliance, he never forgot that it's still only rock and roll.

Van Halen - "Unchained"

The Sunday Cool Down Shuffle: Insomniac Tour Edition

This is a feature post for the Duty, known as The Sunday Cool Down Shuffle. We load up the iTunes, hit shuffle, and write about the first 10 songs that come up no matter what. Got it?   

10. "Screaming Skull" - Sonic Youth  Pat Smear!

9. "Rhoda" - Slint  I went to find Slint songs for Bedroom Covers and found this Biz Markie video instead.

8. "You Know Nothing" - SWANS  Ladies and gentlemen, the always uplifting...SWANS!  (/pulls trigger)

7. "Brian Nichols / Lil Jon / MTV Cribs / Bitches" - Greg Giraldo  I only took the LSAT because I read Greg Giraldo graduated from Harvard Law.

6. "The Awakening" - Merciless  Gutter thrash from the Fenriz-curated Trapped Under VICE mixtape. Pretty sure I downloaded it when I was drunk.  Not bad.

5. "T.O.J" - El-P  More like Eh-P if you ask me!

4. "Dark Harbour / Green Mountain Airways / Illgagaard Forever" - C-Average  C-Average is like the Fucking Champs if the Fucking Champs were both better and worse. 

3. "Travel" - Dave Attell  "So I hate traveling, I guess 'cause my dad used to beat me with a globe" is easily in the Attell Top 6.

2. "Right Brigade" - Bad Brains  I didn't hear Bad Brains 'til I was in my late-20's so I don't give a shit. 

1. "Warm Springs Night" - Joel RL Phelps  Warm Springs, home of the Montana State Hospital!

Click here for this playlist on Spotify and here for SWANS' "You Know Nothing."  Unfortunately, you're shit out of luck when it comes to Joel RL Phelps, so find a torrent or come over to my house or something. 

Women And Children First: I Want Some Too

February Wants Some!! is The Heavy Duty's month-long celebration of the mighty Van Halen. We'll be writing a post loosely based on each VH album in sequential order. Enjoy! 

By Matthew Timmons 

It is no secret that David Lee Roth is a carnival barker, a huckster to the 100th degree, the ultimate "my dad bought me a PA so I'm in the band" lead singer. And even if DLR's thick schtick isn't your thing, with the overwhelming positivity surrounding A Different Kind of Truth, at this point denying that he's the straw that stirs Eddie's fire blazing drink is a lost cause. Looking back over the old records, it's plain as day that Dave's role in the band has always been to fuel Eddie's engine. All attitude with what seems on the surface little substance. But he brings out the heavy in Eddie, so for my preference it's nobody but DLR. With all that substance we get from the rest of the band, Roth's relentless sizzle becomes the most fun anyone has ever had doing the rock and roll. And that's as Heavy Duty as it gets.

On Women and Children First, DLR hits probably his creative high point, tattooing this album with a impressive array of yelps, grunts, and hootin' and a hollerin' like he's getting blown for all 33 and a half minutes of running time. But it's the lyrics on this one that kill me, and probably made me a DLR admirer for life. So many life lessons sandwiched between unintelligible ranting. In classic Heavy Duty fashion, lets run down the top six lines from WaCF that prove Dave is not only the greatest frontman of all time, but also a giver of advice that will lead all who follow to fame and glory:

6. "Why behave in public when you're living on a playground?" - Dave says no to your corporate buttoned-up bullshit dog and pony. You should too.

5. "Could this turn tragic? You know that magic often does." - It doesn't last forever kids. Diversify the shit out of those portfolios.

4. "Well, ain't life grand when ya finally hit it?" - Easy for somebody to say that probably banged Kathie Lee.

3. "I'm only wastin' time, I think I better go." - Know when to hold them, and know when to get botox fold them.

2. "They say, ya could've least faked it, boy. Faked it, boy." - If you don't know whether or not to hold or fold, smile and do more high kicks.

1. "You can't get romantic on a subway line." - Glad this was cleared up for me at an early age before I made a serious faux pas and got slapped in public.

The Duty's Live Evil - Fu Manchu!

 
Fu Manchu // Helms Alee // Witchburn
El Corazon, Seattle
January 14, 2012

"She wanted nothing, and I delivered..."

And with that, the opening line from Fu Manchu's "Ojo Rojo," Scott Hill cemented himself as a Lyrical Genius of Rock and Roll.  Goddamn.  She wanted nothing. And I delivered.  It's such a great line, and I don't think you could write anything more perfect, or more Fu Manchu, if you tried. When Scott's Jeff Spicoli-timbre recites those lines, seriously, it's dusk on the beach and there's a parked Chevelle and a cooler of Modelo Especials ten feet to your left.

I've long thought that Scott's lyrics are Fu Manchu's secret weapon. We've long joked here on The Duty about Fu Manchu being "San Clemente's Loudest Band," and we've long stuffed our posts with references to their fuzzy riffs and tempos that make you drive fast, and while all that's certainly true when I think about what makes Fu Manchu "Fu Manchu" I keep coming back to the words, man, the words.  There's any number of bands with pentatonic solos and power chords, and there's just as many songs about muscle cars and space aliens, but with the Fu it's just different. As much as I know that their decades-long catalogue of songs is steeped in drag races, dirtbikes, and pinball, there's a lot of times when I can't even tell which songs are about what or if they were even about dirtbikes in the first place.  Sometimes the tells are easy ("Boogie Van" is about customized van rallies, duh), but I listened to "Blue Tile Fever" for years and years and years before I had any idea that it was about skating in empty pools...and I had to read that on a message board.  It kinda blew my mind actually, it'd be so easy to tackle the subject by name-dropping the Dogtown guys or to actually use a word like, um, "pool," but to describe the experience as a "Blue...Tile...Feve-ah" seemed inspired and strangely poetic.

But most of all, it doesn't seem stupid.  Or kitschy.  Or ironic.  It wasn't dumb.  And in fact, nothing from Fu Manchu is dumb.  Even when they write a song about Bigfoot ("Grendel, Snowman") they open with a line like "Cast a shadow miles across the sun."  Whoa, such an amazing take on immensity, one that I don't think is even possible.  A shadow across the sun?  Can you even do that?  Fuck, who cares!?  There's a confidence to how Scott writes and the way he approaches motorbikes, In Search Of..., and Three's Company as being cool for no other reason than the fact that they're motorbikes, In Search Of..., and Three's Company.  Scott Hill's genius is that he never tells you why he likes airbrushed muscle cars or sunglasses, and he never ever tries to tell you a story about a guy who built the baddest chopper or who scored the foxiest babes.  If he lionized anything like that it would wind up having the opposite effect; by explicitly championing Evel Knievel or the power of hardcore he'd only be robbing those things of the power and gravity that made them great in the first place.   

**********

Here's some band covering "Blue Tile Fever."  They might like Fu Manchu more than I do, a thought which I find terrifying.

Setlist: Hell on Wheels / Bionic Astronautics / Mongoose / Evil Eye / IN SEARCH OF...: Regal Begal / Missing Link / Asphalt Risin' / Neptune's Convoy / Redline / Cyclone Launch / Strato-Streak / Solid Hex / The Falcon Has Landed / Seahag / The Bargain / Supershooter / ENCORE: Weird Beard / King of the Road / Godzilla


(Image above is from the January 2006 at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa, CA. If you look closely you can see me.  When the band finished their set, Fu guitarist Bob Balch ran offstage and bee-lined it to the men's room.)

Van Halen II: No Harmonies, No Problem

February Wants Some!! is The Heavy Duty's month-long celebration of the mighty Van Halen. We'll be writing a post loosely based on each VH album in sequential order. Enjoy!

By Devon Booth

You wanna know my favorite part about Van Halen II?  This.  This video of the band playing "Somebody Get Me a Doctor" from 1998.  Hot damn.

It's the first YouTube video I ever saw. The second it ended the first thing I did was email it to Matt so it could be the first YouTube video that he ever saw.  The first thing he did after it ended was to email it to his dad so it could be the first YouTube video that Pops ever saw.  It's honestly one of the hands-down greatest things I've ever seen, and easily part of the Mount Rushmore of all things Van Halen, right there alongside "Eruption" and that poster of David Lee Roth in ass-less chaps. I like this video for all the obvious reasons (Michael Anthony, always incredible with the stage moves and boozy bass, this time incrediblin' it up while handlin' the lead mike-ro-phone; Alex Van Halen in a neck brace; Eddie halfway-fumbling his oh so sweet leads), but what makes me love it most of all is that from the moment I heard of its very existence I immediately thought, "Man, isn't Van Halen just the coolest?"  No band has been more appealing arrogant than these guys.  Not then, not now, and not ever.  In 1998 they were in dire straits: long past Dave, no more Sammy, and now saddled with a singer no one liked and a record no one cared about. So what did they do?  They pulled the baddest tune out of their catalog and then told the baddest dude in the band that he was gonna sing the darn thing.

A stroke of motherfucking genius.

When you watch this clip I guarantee you'll see nothing but timeless Van Halen personality dripping offstage and into the front row; it's kinda drunk and it's a little sloppy, which of course means that it's PURE VAN HALEN.  It's a jealousy-inducing spectacle of the Greatest Time Ever that You Wish You Were Having Right Now But That You Sorta Feel Like You Are Having Even Though You're Sitting At Home Because You're Watching This and It's Stone-Cold Infectious.  "Somebody Get Me a Doctor" makes me fall in love with both my life and with Van Halen every time I watch it, and even every time I dare to think of it.  From the moment it starts up it never fails to fill me full of a life and energy that I can't help but email the link to everyone I know all over again and hope that it's their first time on YouTube too.

Van Halen I: The Storm Before The Calm

February Wants Some!! is The Heavy Duty's month-long celebration of the mighty Van Halen. We'll be writing a post loosely based on each VH album in sequential order. Enjoy! 

By Greg Timmons 

February, 1978. I had to go back and look at the music that was happening at that time… thank you Interwebs. As cool as it might be to say that my mind has been clouded from years of drugs and booze (very Rock and Roll), the truth is… that was just a long time ago. I’m two years out of high school, playing guitar in a country band, and half of the dynamic duo that is The Heavy Duty was nothing more than a gleam in my eye.

Ted Nugent (Cat Scratch Fever ’77), Robin Trower (Bridge of Sighs ’74), Thin Lizzy – Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson (Jailbreak ’76)… these were some of the players and bands that ruled rock guitar. Big and bluesy, they sold records and filled stadiums. Sure, we had other guitar heroes… Al Di Meola (Elegant Gypsy ’77), Yes – Steve Howe (Going for the One ’77), Rush – Alex Lifeson (2112 ’76) but they were playing brainy, progressive rock… toomuch technique and not enough girls. Not really what I wanted to hear. I admired the skills, but not the grooves.

I Can Handle The Truth

I sat down at my computer tonight with the intention of writing an old-school Heavy Duty Track by Track Duty Attack about A Different Kind of Truth. Whole lee shit. About halfway through I ran out of ways to write 'fuuuuuuck yessssss," so I spiked it. Snap takes are so easy in this Twitter/Facebook world, I want to give you something a bit more substantial. Or I want to sit on it as long as possible. Either way, look for a "One Month In" style review later on so I can dig in a bit more. 

Okay fine here's my quick first take on ADKOT: As much as this is about Roth returning to the fold, this is truly the EVH show. Roth's presence gives Ed an excuse to exhume all the old riffs and go as heavy and as fast as possible. This is some serious guitar wizardry. No Van Hagar over-chorused plodding bullshit. Just go listen to it yourself! You won't be disappointed. 

And tomorrow we'll kick off our month-long celebration "February Wants Some!!" with an ultra-secret  special guest who's contribution is at the core of all things Duty. You might even say the's the god "father" of this site. Or maybe he's the top of the "Pops" of Van Halen know-how. Who is this mystery man? Check in tomorrow to find out!

This Month In Amazon $5 Downloads: February

Rio - Duran Duran - Remember the video for "Come Undone" where these Brits were hanging around a fish-tank. Sexiest fish-tank use of all time?

Van Halen I - Van Halen - In advance of "February Wants Some," you probably should pick this one up if you haven't yet. It's pretty good.

Mezzanine - Massive Attack - Who knew The Drive Soundtrack would be the Rosa Parks of electronica music for The Duty?

Live In Santa Monica '72 - David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust comes and knocks at your door.

Dreamboat Annie - Heart - This has some serious deep album cuts potential.

Blind Melon - Blind Melon - Or what? You'll release the dogs or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you?

New Album - Boris - Buy this before they put out another album and this title makes no sense.

Eponymous - R.E.M. - See, "eponymous" means your hair. So technically it's true. That's what makes it so funny.

American Pie - Don McLean - Does Don at least get invited to the red carpet premieres for them American Pie flicks? You got any gum?

The Month in Bedroom Covers

(Bedroom Covers is a Tumblr page where I collect videos of people playing cover songs on their webcams. Once a month I'll post a few of my favorites here on The Heavy Duty.)

Led Zeppelin - "The Ocean"
YouTube user ewallen
Love the product placement.  I like to see young guys so forward-thinking.

INXS - "Never Tear Us Apart"
YouTube user MoonwalkerPJ
The cover's great on its own, but how can you not smile at MoonwalkerPJ's Wolfman Jack/Don Cornelius-styled introduction?  So spectacular.  Dude's like a real performer, he is, and with that killer jungle cat shirt...?  You can't beat it.

Van Halen - "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love"
YouTube user aschmidtibc
I was so excited about the band's upcoming release that I decided to post a ton of Van Halen vids this month, and this kid's take on "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" was by far my favorite.  He has that perfect amount of pretension and I really like it when he sings the guitar part at 2:28.

You Wanted a Post, You Gotta Post

Has it really been a week since we've posted? What's with us, man? Well, sorry about the delay in fabulous content, but we promise we've got some neat stuff coming up soon that will kill at least five minutes of your workday. With two big shows in Seattle this week, The Aristocrats and Alabama Shakes, we should have reviews of both up next week.

And since it's coming up fast, it's time to announced that The Heavy Duty has dubbed next month "February Wants Some!!" All month we'll be celebrating the new Van Halen album release with a shitload of posts about the band. So much content, with the explicit goal of making you so sick you'll involuntarily hurl after hearing a single yelp from DLR. But for now, how about a quick preview of a new song that sounds like a half-assed version of "Dance the Night Away" without the killer tone? Let us know what you think in the comments.


Van Halen - "Blood and Fire" (Preview)

And You Snow It

As I'm sure you've read by now, The Heavy Duty's home base of Seattle has been blanketed with a magnificent work closing, hot chocolate hoarding, frosty face causing snowstorm that's grinding the city to a halt. And I thought we should celebrated this glorious day with all the songs with "snow" in the title that came up in my iTunes search!

GWAR - "Pure as the Arctic Snow"


Fu Manchu - "Grendel, Snowman"


Black Sabbath - "Snowblind"


AC/DC - "Snowballed"

The Year in Bedroom Covers

It was one year ago today that I started a Tumblr page called Bedroom Covers.  It was an easy bit: YouTube videos of people playing cover songs in their bedrooms.  "Song I know.  People I don't."  Since last January I've done my best to upload two videos to the site every single morning. To date there's over 720 posts, everything from cover versions of Mayhem, The James Gang, and Des'ree to performances by middle-aged men in sunglasses, teenage girls in heavy makeup, and shirtless bros from foreign shores.  There's so much great stuff on here I'll personally guarantee that every one of you will find a video you enjoy so much that you couldn't even conceive of your life without it.

So in honor of Bedroom Covers' first anniversary here's ten of my favorite videos from the past year.  Thanks for watching.  Two more videos will be uploaded tomorrow at seven.

The Smiths - "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"
YouTube user cataclismo
Bedroom Covers' first post, and a prescient one at that.  No band is more tailor-made for closing your bedroom door and turning on your outdated webcam than The Smiths.  Fantastic, touching, and sung with accents.  Accents!

Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Tuesday's Gone"
YouTube user froggy1954
I sometimes wonder why this guy put this up, and then why he hasn't taken it down.

UFO - "Rock Bottom"
YouTube user nooneung
Matt and I used to go to this bar in downtown Seattle where we'd drink tallboys of Pabst and the DJ would play stuff like Sepultura and Thin Lizzy. Every now and again we'd hear UFO's "Rock Bottom" and I'd always think, "Goddamn, what a killer tune."  Apparently this kid did too.  I always love a Bedroom Cover where the guy not only nails the riffs and the ripping solos, but can sing the tune at the same time. nooneung gets extra points 'cause he does all of that and then pipes in those cool MIDI backing samples.  In fact, this video is so rad there's no reason it shouldn't have a million more views than it does right now, so please do this guy a huge favor and send this link to Vinnie Moore or Mike McCready or Kirk Hammett or some other guitar dude who's down with Michael Schenker so we can make that happen.

The Go-Betweens - "Rock and Roll Friend"
YouTube user volitapearl
So while I really, really, really like The Go-Betweens, I was never much a fan of this song until I found volitapearl's 4 AM version of "Rock and Roll Friend" and it changed everything. If Bedroom Covers accomplishes one thing I want that one thing to be to talk her into recording a real-deal full-length version of this.  This track is exactly the kind of cover I want when I'm plugging in the headphones: it's a little bit lonesome and a whole lot original.  I don't think I'd ever notice it was the same song.  I love the way volitapearl decided to play the octave power-chords and her voice is outstanding.  Check out volitapearl's band's Tumblr page and follow her on Twitter.  I think I'll throw her an @, and I might even download her EP off Bandcamp.

Scott Kelly Plays Neil Young. It's Pretty Cool.

Here's some video of Neurosis' Scott Kelly and Yakuza's Bruce Lamont playing Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" at Chicago's Empty Bottle earlier this month. Since today's my day off and there's snow on the ground outside my window, this song sounds GREAT.  Enjoy.

The Duty's Live Evil: Scott Kelly // Jay Munly // Bob Wayne!

(Hey everyone, here's a thing I wrote about the Scott Kelly // Jay Munly // Bob Wayne show I saw last November.  I wrote it fairly soon after the show, goofed around not finishing it, and then decided I wasn't going to publish the thing after all. After recycling nearly all the bits into my 2011 Year in Re-Brew I went back and re-read this draft and liked it anyway.  So here it is. Apologies for the redundancies.  Enjoy.)
 

Scott Kelly // Jay Munly // Bob Wayne
Tractor Tavern, Seattle
November 29, 2011

I'd never heard of Jay Munly until he walked onstage and started playing.

In the week that passed I think I listened to his 2002 record Jimmy Carter Syndrome somewhere around thirty-five times. It's now somewhere around one month later and I've already listened to it three times today. It's even playing right now, right as I type this. Within the first thirty seconds of seeing Munly sit down on a folding chair and plug in his guitar I knew he was great and I knew I was about to be a big, big, BIG fan.

And so far I was right.  The guy is great. I am a big fan.

Jay Munly looks like he's six-and-a-half feet tall and weighs just under a hundred pounds. When he strolled onstage the other night he carried with him a neckerchief and a bottle of Budweiser, and he wore so much black that I thought I could see clear through him. He sang his forty minutes of songs with a voice that was half Nick Cave baritone and half wailing Appalachian falsetto, and either way the sound broke my heart. Like I said, I'd never heard any of these songs, but from what I could tell from first listen they were half about Old Testament and prizefighters, and half about dogs and frontier abortions. Every so often Munly would pull back and from the mic and speak a few lyrics to himself, in an aside that we could barely hear. Between songs the guy didn't say a single word. Not one. He just stared straight ahead, past the crowd and back toward the soundboard, and maybe he tuned his guitar. Halfway through his set he fished an alligator clip out of his pocket and clipped it to a string, punctuating the following song with blasts of what sounded like the kick from a distorted TR-808.

Opeth Your Heart To Me

How did it take me so long to come around to Opeth? I'm supposed to be a professional music writer, Tebowing  preaching to all the Duty faithful about that good rock and or roll. And I've failed all of you. Somehow I've taken a big Pete Incaviglia-sized whiff on this band up until now and it's embarrassing me even to admit it. I've been cranking their latest album Heritage on Spotify for the last week and I think it's awesome. Fantastic guitar tones, great arrangements, tasty keyboards, and not too prog-tastic. And I for one enjoy all the clean vocals because that's how I like my metal now. Intelligible.

What a great obscure find, eh? Only one of the most celebrated metal bands of the past 15 years, and one I even saw live already! Pulitzer coming my way. Yeesh. I finally decided Stockholm's Loudest Band was worth my time because I've been obsessing over getting a new PRS guitar and both guitarists have their own signature models. So I got interested in checking out their guitar tone and decided to give Heritage a spin. I'm as confused as you are that I waited this long, even when back in September  I wrote about this album getting released and didn't think to check out a measly YouTube clip! What an asshole. Oh well. Let's make up for lost time:

Opeth - Slither

The Sunday Cool Down Shuffle: That Interview's a Pretty Good Idea Edition

This is a feature post for the Duty, known as The Sunday Cool Down Shuffle. We load up the iTunes, hit shuffle, and write about the first 10 songs that come up no matter what. Got it?

10. "Jazz Passenger" - Bottle  Oh man, when I was in eighth grade Bottle was a band of college guys and I was their number one fan.  I sent fan mail to their PO Box and everything, and they were all very nice to me. I should Facebook some of those guys and interview them for the Duty.

9. "New Mind" - SWANS  I like their bunny rabbit goth stuff more than their pummeling noise stuff.

8. "Song 25" - The Austerity Program  I wrote about this band once.  They play with a drum machine so when I put their EP on my Top 10 for the Lounge Act podcast I used a line from the sticker that was on the first pressing's of Big Black's Headache EP ("Not as good as Atomizer, so don't get your hopes up, cheese!"). I was happy with myself for being clever, but also for being honest.  The Austerity Program's Backsliders isn't nearly as good as Black Madonna.  

7. "Valentine" - Adrian Borland  This is the first time I've heard this song. It's good!

6. "Now Is Better Than Before" - Jonathan Richman  Jonathan played this on some TV show in the early '90s.  It's a great clip.

5. "The Blood Runs Red" - Discharge  One time Heavy Duty contributor Mike Foley checked out this CD from the Seattle Public Library.

4. "Right Brigade" - Bad Brains  I don't think anything on this list has ever been on Matt's iTunes.

3. "We Are Never Talking" - Roky Erickson  I almost bought a poster when I saw Roky Erickson in 2008. Show wasn't very good, but that poster was neat.  Seemed like a hassle to carry it home.

2. "Lame" - Burn the Priest  I should really just delete 85% of my iTunes collection.

1. "High Price on Our Heads" - Circle Jerks   My mom bought me this album at the Wherehouse.

Don't Ya Trust Me?

With all the excitement around the mammoth Van Halen juggernaut returning to conquer BeiberFever and steal your girlfriend mother, much is being made about this being the first Van Halen album with David Lee Roth since 1984. This is technically true, but let's not all go crazy and forget about two excellent songs that the full original lineup recorded for Best of Van Halen Vol. 1 back in 1996 (Also featuring the underrated Van Haggar track Humans Being.) Audio evidence:

"You Can't Get This Stuff No More"


"Me Wise Magic"


I probably only like these two songs because of their super-fan deep band cuts potential, along with the romantic notion that a full album during this time with this lineup would have killed. Is there any chance a song off  A Different Kind of Truth can be as awesome as those two? Probably not, and because of one man's absence: Michael Fucking Anthony.

We are a broken record around here about how much we adore him, but Mikey is our guy. It's that simple. So I sincerely hope that the new VH album is as remotely as cool as those two songs. But I'm damn sure they'll be lacking in the high-harmonies dept and the sweet alcoholic beverage-shaped bass dept. But I'll try keep and open mind. 

People Who Released Albums in 2011, And Cassie Chatelain's Self-Indulgent Memories Tied To Each

For The Heavy Duty's "Breast of 2011," Matt and Dev are inviting a few friends to share their thoughts on the year's best music.

By Cassie Chatelain 

Just like the title says. People who released albums in 2011, and my self-indulgent memories tied to each:


Coldplay:
In High School, I went to the Oregon coast with my best friends family. On the beach a stylish couple in their early thirties asked me to take their picture. I desperately wanted to somehow portray how cool I also was. I wanted them to walk away going "Wow, that high-schooler is super funny and charming without even trying, don't you think?" I took the picture, and gave them their camera back. They were all "Thanks!" and I said "No Welcome!" because I was nervous, and fucked everything up.

On the drive home, everybody stopped at Safeway to go to the bathroom, I was all "Naw, I'm cool." and waited in the car. Less than an hour later I had to pee worse than ever before. It seriously felt like monsters were tap-dancing on my bladder. I weirdly didn't say anything because I felt stupid for not going at the Safeway like everybody else. So I held it while fantasizing about the nightmare this could become (Will I just pee on the upholstery? Could I secretly go in a Taco Bell cup without them noticing? Form a cup with my hands and hoist the pee out the window in sessions like I'm in a sinking raft?) Eventually, we pulled over and I went on the side of the road. When I got home, my sister told me "You JUST missed Coldplay on Letterman." She knew how much I loved them, and she said it as a jab, to rub it in. What a bitch ya know? So I cried in my room with Monday around the corner. Fuck you, High School.

Don't Let it Be Over: Matthew's Best of 2011

We love lists here at The Heavy Duty, and none more than a top ten album list. We also like italicized headers than no one reads. Shit balls cock. 


By Matthew Timmons

We've already published two pieces disagreeing with me about as much as you possibly can without wanting to slap me in public, but 2011 was my favorite year for new music in a long, long time. But that claim in itself tells you everything you need to know about enjoying music. Besides sense of humor, nothing is as personal as one's taste in music. I got into these 10 albums in my own personal way, and I could tell you how great they are and you might hate them anyway. Don't worry, we'll still be friends. You'll tell me I'm full of shit and I'll get over it. Too busy dancing to these hot tracks in my kitchen as I sing into a wooden spoon. Hit up these records on Spotify/YouTube/Amazon or whatever and see if they make you swing too.

HONORABLE MENTION: Beyond Magnetic EP, Alabama Shakes EP, David Grissom's Way Down Deep. All these albums are EP's and by my arbitrary rules don't count. Also Watch the Throne was pretty great, but I didn't buy it so it doesn't make the list.

10. The Aristocrats - The Aristocrats 

Major instrument gymnastics from three monster players. I've never been much into instrumental wankery, but since I've been player much more guitar this year, I've been searching beyond standard blooze licks for inspiration. And I've found it in Guthrie Govan. But this isn't some solo masturbatory biggest-guitar-dickest-fest, all three players shine in tandem and I much prever this approach over the windblown hair guitar-god Satch/Vai stuff. I did a lot of writing for my science class this quarter, and I needed some good instrumental music to blast while I copied and pasted from Wikipieda. Thanks guys!

9. Smoke Ring for My Halo - Kurt Vile 

If Kurt Vile was playing his beat-up Martin outside Pike's Market, mumbling about ghosts or small Pennsylvania towns I doubt I'd stop to listen. But that's the magic of a little touch of reverb, some finger style guitar overdubs, and a great name. Turns a nice kid with nice melodies into an Pitchfork-beloved international superstar.

The Year in Re-Brew: Devon's Top 10 of 2011

It's the end of the year!  Here's what I (Devon) listened to during 2011.

By Devon Booth

10. Various Artists -- Drive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Lakeshore Records, 2011

Movie of the Year! The songs with singing make you want to make out with slender girls who taste like beer, and by "you" I mean "me," and by "me" I mean "all the time."

Standout Track: Desire's "Under Your Spell." "I don't eat / I don't sleep / I do nothing but think of yoouuuuuuu...." Unrequited love.  Ugh.

9. Feist -- Metals
Interscope, 2011

One night while Matt and I were up late talking about reviving The Heavy Duty and instant messaging each other YouTube links of St. Vincent and Karen O I thought, "You know what, I'm totally gonna buy that new Feist album."  I enjoyed the holy heck of out of at least half of Leslie Feist's 2007 album The Reminder and I'd been a big fan of Metals lead-off "single" for a week or two, but that night I was so full of giddy excitement about being a music fan that a new Feist album seemed like it'd be not only a really great record but one that'd be even more fun to buy. Even if I'd only listen to it twice.  And I was right!  Metals is really great, and true to my prediction I've listened to it maybe thrice since I brought it home from the CD store.  And, you know, I'm totally okay with that.  It's really such a cool record, one that sounded great when I swept my floor and stared out the window, and one that sounded even more fantastic when I wore a scarf in my apartment and poured myself a drink.  The last time I listened to it I sat on the couch and wrote pages and pages of notes in a legal pad about how much I enjoyed the songs and even more about how much I enjoyed the experience.  Looking over those notes right now I see that they're half about great voices and cute bangs, and half about Bob Dylan and Depression-era hats. Hmmm.  Maybe that's really all you need to know right there.  Metals: neat songs and heavy thought fodder.

Actually, maybe the thing I like most about Metals is how every time I listen to it I think about how these songs might have evolved, where the writing process started, and where it finally stopped.  See, The Reminder was mostly a singing and guitar album, but Metals has so many different stringy and clinky instruments that weave in and out, and songs that are sometime subdued and sometimes orchestrated, that I can't help but stop and wonder who brought what arrangement to the table or what the original scratch demos sounded like or why the whole thing is so beautiful and contemplative and interesting.
Then I go back to thinking about great voices, cute bangs, and Bob Dylan.

Standout Track: "Caught a Long Wind"  Hey, why not?  It's real pretty.  Makes me want to pour a drink and rest your head on my shoulder.

The Duty's Live Evil -- Dinosaur Jr!

Dinosaur Jr // Pierced Arrows
Showbox, Seattle
December 17, 2011

Growing a beard is probably the greatest thing J Mascis has ever done.  I seriously love it, and not just because I've been growing a beard my own damn self, but because it lets everyone know that J Mascis means BUSINESS.  It's easy to underestimate the guy, and for longer than I've been listening to Dinosaur Jr I feel like everyone has sold J short.  With the way he speaks and the way he sings he's inadvertently fooled the world into thinking he's lazy and high, and that his records are tossed-off excuses to play guitar solos.  But this couldn't be further from the truth.  Mascis is not only a fantastic lyricist and a great singer, but he's always recording and he's always on tour.  Always.  During those years before the Dinosaur Jr reunion, J crossed the country, like, four times, and then he went to Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and back all the way back to Europe.  He got Mike Watt back on his feet after the guy almost died from a scrotum infection and he instigated The Stooges reunion. He also bought a ton of vintage gear.  How awesome.

The Month in Bedroom Covers

(Bedroom Covers is a Tumblr page where I collect videos of people playing cover songs on their webcams. Once a month I'll post a few of my favorites here on The Heavy Duty.)

Van Halen - "Panama"
YouTube user googxmsr

Sometimes I post a video just because I like the guy's house.

You're Doing It Wrong: Michael Foley on The Year in Music

For The Heavy Duty's "Breast of 2011," Matt and Dev are inviting a few friends to share their thoughts on the year's best music.

By Michael Foley

Upon getting the kind request to contribute some thoughts on The Year In Music 2011 to The Duty (Heavy being so implied amongst those in the know as to be rendered almost redundant, but everyone has to start somewhere right?), it was cause for me to contemplate how the method(s) we consume our music and our entry points to the bands we like/love/loathe can influence us well after the initial blush of audio adoration.

Then I thought that is awfully damn pretentious.

Look, we like what we like. We can over-think it as much as we want, believe me. Does it matter if it's because that solo "rocked" or if the singer is pretty or if they didn't sign with a major? Maybe, depends on what we bring to the table when we turn the player up or down, on or off (only old farts still turn the station and no one turns the channel). Here's some of what I found at the table this year.

I Got The Shakes: My Song of The Year

I'm still banging away at my year's top ten album list, elevating (in my mind) its importance to Magna Carta or even the original screenplay for Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure levels. A historic document indeed! So how about my song of the year while you wait!



Stumbling upon Alabama Shakes on an early Saturday morning was my favorite musical moment of the year. Something just clicked instantly, like I've been a fan of this band forever. With its clean guitar tones, rolling 60's-esque bass lines, and of course singer Brittany Howard's soulful pleading croon, "I Found You" just knocked me out. I love when music becomes this sort of unexplainable magical mystical emotional gut punch, which only happens when you least expect it. That is a nice recipe for a song of the year.

Happy Holidays from The Duty!

List 'O Top Six: My Favorite Tangentially Music Related Things of 2011

I'll be posting my top albums of 2011 sometime next week, but I had a few extra things I loved that were sort of related to my voracious music consumption that weren't "albums," thus disqualified. So here's a List 'o Top Six that helped put 2011 over the top and made it my favorite "music" year since 2006, which was my first year in Seattle and the saw the genesis of this very website:

6. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Fallon owns the late night music scene, no questions asked. The Roots, the impressions, the theme weeks and more. Just plain fun. And all the clips are online the next morning, so I don't have to stay up until 1:25am to watch! My favorite clip of the year: