Let’s say you really like steak. One day, you go to a restaurant, and eat what turns out to be the best steak you’ve ever had. From that point on, whenever you eat steak, you’ll compare it to that one, perfect steak. You’ll become very picky about the steak you eat. You won’t just settle for any old steak. It has to be damn good, if not better than the best.
Why the unnecessarily long metaphor? Because I want you to check out The Stingers ATX's This Good Thing. It’s some damn good steak, so to speak.

With so many genres and subgenres of music out there, it seems inevitable that, at frequent points in our lifetime, various genres will blend and blur together. It also seems inevitable that, at some point, a catalyst of some sort would appear to encourage such genre-blurring unions.

Three or four years ago, I happened to catch a video called “Things I’ve Seen”. I’d never heard the song before, and had no idea whose video it was. The music was hot, though, and it caught my attention. Then, Laurence Fishburne walks across the screen, the lone non-band member in the video. I called my boy Debbie over to check it out, and we were hypnotized. Our heads were in a perpetual bob, and our eyes were lit up like streetlights. The video ends, and we were now fans of The Spooks.

Since we didn’t have one last month, I’m back to bring the shit, love-style.
1. Burt’s Beeswax

When The Streets (a.k.a., Mike Skinner) came out last year, non-Yankee wankers everywhere rejoiced at the sheer novelty of a British MC speaking in his native vernacular. And why not, you know? It’s about time people realized you don’t have to mimic American lingo to be cool. Look at Joe Cocker.

I'm always excited when CDs are delivered to the TLC mailbox. I was doubly excited to see that one had come from our good and personable friends at Maverick Recording Company. They had generously sent Wayne a copy of Tantric's new album for review. He passed the CD on to me, since he was too busy working on other parts of the paper to listen to any rock 'n' roll.

Bleenk bleenk, beam beam, ga-gaw, ka-kaw, GAW, GAW! Witches and bones, witches and bones!
Bleenk bleenk, beam beam, ga-gaw, ka-kaw, GAW, GAW! Witches and bones, witches and bones!
BAM! BAM! Thunder and lightning, creepy, creepy witches and bones. WITCHES AND BONES!
Bleenk bleenk, beam beam, ga-gaw, ka-kaw, GAW, GAW! Witches and bones, witches and bones!
Bleenk bleenk, beam beam, ga-gaw, ka-kaw, GAW, GAW! Witches and bones, witches and bones!
These guys shake me to the core--
So Blair Witch!
So disturbing--
Distorted sounds--
Fear for--
My--

Is it okay to like the French again? I mean, I know that we weren't supposed to like them a while back because of that whole "we’re savage killers and they’re not okay with that" thing, but are we back to calling them "French" fries again? Or do we still hate them?
Well, even if the French are still our mortal enemies, I’m fortunate enough to have a BRAIN AND THOUGHT PROCESS OF MY OWN. And what my brain tells me is that I like these French cats from Air.

I’ve recently been fortunate enough to get in contact with a very close friend that I haven’t seen in a very long time. This was the friend that I found early on in high school solely because we were two of the only kids in our entire 2,000 person high school who read comics. After high school, our paths diverted. We occasionally talked, but really didn’t hear from each other much. Now, however, we’re both out of college, and he’s moved to my town, Columbus. Which brings me to the topic of this month’s column:

The album Paisley and Twee is a compilation containing 26 little ditties showcasing the "talents" of Elekibass, The Poison Control Center, Ryan Anderson, and The Red Pony Clock. Let’s break this album down, group by group.
The first five songs are forced on us by Elekibass. Imagine if the Beatles were retarded, tone-deaf, Asian surf musicians, recording in a basement on a cassette recorder. Definitely worth a laugh, but it’s only funny for about the first minute. Then it enters the realm of just plain pathetic.