A psychobilly band, a hardcore band and an Irish-punk band all walked into a bar. Only it wasn't a bar. It was the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio. And they didn't really walk, so much as they charged, full-speed ahead. It was the “Sing Loud, Sing Proud American Pride Tour”-- an all-ages Sunday Service featuring diesel-fueled turns in the pulpit from Tiger Army, Sick Of It All and the Dropkick Murphys. SoCal psychobillies Tiger Army warmed up the congregation with their Addams Family blend of rockabilly, punk and horror movie flair.

A FRANK ZAPPA TRIBUTE: Did you wake up this morning with a hankering for some good live music and a free prostate exam? That's weird. Of course, if you woke up this morning with a hankering to pay tribute to late interplanetary musical legend Frank Zappa via some good live music and a free prostate exam, that's perfectly normal. So normal, in fact, that it's gonna' happen for the second year in a row. Get your loose booty on down to Oldfield's on High, Saturday November 10 for "Do Your Balls Hang Low?: A Frank Zappa Tribute, Part 2".

You're four-years-old. Mom and dad tell you to get into bed; that they'll be in, in a minute, to read you a story before you go to sleep. Your bedroom windows are open. It's the middle of October, and it's windy as hell. In the street below, you can hear a small percussion ensemble pounding away under the dim light of small torches. Your gypsy neighbor is playing his violin again. And from a distance, you can hear the gurgle of electric guitars from a rock concert in the park. All this is going on as mom and dad walk in and begin shouting Public Enemy lyrics at the top of their lungs.

How can I describe The New Apocalypse: Mankind’s Last Exodus? Picture if you will a three-videotape-long ‘80s music video with music directed by Satan (if Satan were the fifth member of ABBA) and starring every user of psychotropic drugs who ever stalked Kraftwerk. Juhan Af Grann, the Satanic Dancing Queen himself, heads his own UFO cult somewhere in Sweden, the Land of Chocolate, Watches and Feathered Hair.

Just when you thought Pixar had done it all, they break down yet another wall in computer graphics with their newest film, Monsters, Inc. What wall? Hair. That's right, hair. Not only does the hair on Sulley look real, but it puts the hair in Final Fantasy to shame. There is a scene where Sulley gets hit with a snowball, and the pieces of snow stay in and move with the individual hairs on his body. Wow! Since they started back in 1994, Pixar has explored the world of toys, bugs, and now, monsters. In the monster world, their energy is made-up from the screams of children.

This year, I was able to attend the Wizard World 2001 in Chicago sans family. I had the freedom to "geek out" to my heart's content. I saw many things, got many autographs, and sat through many panels. Here's a little sample of my adventures:

funk: It was a great show and they were cool with letting people video tape it. There was a guy in the middle of the crowd who was taping, but it was all shaky. He'll never be able to watch it without puking.
darby: What did you think of the transition from the TV show to the CD to the live show?
f: I sort of expected a whole band.
d: I was hoping that it would be just the two of them and they wouldn't get too Hollywood with a whole band.

There's a scene in the movie Animal House where the sensitive guy is on the stairs at a party, strumming his guitar and singing "I Gave My Love a Cherry" to a couple of hot sorority babes. All of a sudden, Blutarski (John Belushi) comes up to him, grabs the guitar, and smashes it against the wall into a million sensitive little pieces. Now, if roles were reversed, and Blutarski were given the guitar, what song would he play? How about "'p' is for: pig, prutality, pand pabuse pof power", a nice little here's-what-I-think-is-wrong-with-authority number. Never heard of it?

Believe it or not, my scatterbrained preferences reach into the realm of punk music. Something in the whole “I’ll reduce your eardrums to pulp” brand of angst and social awareness you get from bands like Sick Of It All and The Distillers makes me all sparkly inside. Too bad for me, though, that Easy Action is not one of those bands. It’s not like their self-titled debut (Reptilian Records) is God-awful. From the moment it starts, the album takes off at full speed with the instrumental momentum of a 500 lb. Olympic high-diver.

You're goddamned right I'm pissed! I'm pissed that the Cutthroats 9 fucked me over by putting a measly six fucking songs on their Anger Management (Reptilian Records) disc. I'm also pissed that the mix doesn't do the trio any justice. The three of the 9 infuse rockabilly groove with thrasher punk sensibilities and a dash of death metal. The quick six songs are raw, bleeding, distorted spewings of aggression. Vocally it seems right on, but fails to be intelligible at times. The guitar work sometimes feels as uncomfortable as wet socks.