Clearly Malfunctioning in Many Important Regards

Franz Ferdinand
This band of Scottish idiots is totally overrated. I heard their CD and was mildly entertained, but it was like a tummyful of kasha, quickly forgotten and replaced with real hunger, real soon. For real music. I don't like that they look like they don't have to shave. I don't like that otherwise reliable music experts seemed to gush unbecomingly when this record came out (I'm looking at you, Mike McGonigal). I don't like that it took me like forever to illegally download all the tracks -- I thought this shit was popular! I don't like the ripped-off Zeppelin riff in "Take Me Out" that everyone pretends isn't there. Or do they? I don't know, and I don't care. Shut up, Franz Ferdinand.
[6:04pm est]
See, here's where I get to double-cross you, head you off at the pass, do a switchback, and then other Western phrases of hornswogglement, because I'm not a Ferdi-fan either. (You see how I did that? I all recognized that "-nand" and "fan" were similar in sound and I made the words meld together. That's why I make the large dollars.) Anyhow, yeah. I think back to how that horrible Natalie Imbrugliagliaerayn song "Torn" used to make me quiver with barely-suppressed rage at its blatant tearing of the guitar wail from James' "She's a Star," and I experience that same revulsion, 'cept it's 50 bazillion times worse 'cause "Take Me Out" not only filches from Zep but thefts more fucking so from the Afghan Whigs' 1992 cover of the Webber/Rice song "The Temple." I know that's boldly arcane but suck it because it's so totally right. I LOVE YOU GREG DULLI!
     And so anyhow I hadn't even gotten around to downloading anything, having heard enough on the indie station to convince me that this particular brand of garage-hungry nostalgie de la Blur was not pour moi, and I hadn't also then gotten a good look at any of them. Spurred by your post, Jer, I can say with confidence that Franz now gets filed with Charlatans UK under Bands I Should Probably Like Given the Rest of My Taste, But That I Don't, and Who Are Insurmountably Funny-Looking Besides. Dude, if you want Scottish indie rock, go Mogwai or Arab Strap, and sod these minging milksoppers.
[8:41pm pst]
The picture I saw was this one, in which they look a lot cleaner, nattier, primped and styled, and which filled me with instant dread and distaste. I hate.
[11:59am est]
But wait, to the untrained eye (and here, as with most uses of that phrase, I submit my dad as possessor of that so-unaware-of-popular-culture eye), how is this image significantly different, in terms of rock-gloss and attitudinal moxy? And yet Interpol is good (though I would appreciate them tipping a 40oz. to Ian Curtis, RIP). So: do you hate Franz for how they look, or do you hate how they look because you hate their sound? I say: don't you know. You say: you don't know. Don't move, time is slow. I say: Take me out.
     No, literally. Take me out. In the mob sense. I beg you: kill me.
[10:40am pst]
Right but it's the latter, baby. You're right. I will excuse the most disastrous sartorial excesses in a band I like, but unproved overpreening hooligans are always poseurs. In fact, this may be one of the main reasons I can't deal with "hard rock": its aesthetic of black t-shirts, long hair, and overly self-indulgent facial-hair sculptings makes it impossible for me to take the music seriously. Whoops, I think I just flip-flopped on that. I hate the music cause I can't stand the look? Well... maybe if I feel the music grew from the look, instead of the other way around. Like old punk rockers looked cool, but 19-year-olds with tapered plaid pants and laboriously shredded black denim jackets just make me want to safety-pin them to death. RESOLUTION: NONE.
[2:15pm est]
Okay but then you're cracking a new cylindrical aluminum vessel of nematodes, because there are subdivisions there, too. I think it's like this: I love metal bands that are serious about being metal, while being apparently totally unaware that they are uncool--or maybe a better way to say that is not giving one shreadly fuck about if we hipsters like them ironically or not. Dragonforce, Manowar: Give they one single shit about anything non-metal? Nay. Nay. And yet Hard Rockers, 'specially the hatefully sub-"alternative" kind like that absolutely oily Dave Navarro (om gugh BLUCH), are just like one step above being papercut with a document full of typos for me. Oh hi, did you come here because you are one of Jeremy's fans with no love for the Claude who has therefore no idea how "papcercuts from typos" might affect her? Lemme 'splain it to ya, masterhater: SHE DON'T LIKE 'EM.
     Anyhow, back to the topic at hand. I like metal guys if they are fully metallic and have triumphant locks, etc. (although goatees are always gross, guys, for serious. Earlier I was talking to Jeremy on the phone and his connection was all schrrr skkrreee weeeoshcchhshkkkk and I was like "Whoa, your cellphone blows a dong, dude" and he was like, astonishingly, "That's not static, it's my beard on the mouthpiece. See? Skkchchrkk." I know that's not the same as a goatee but TRIM IT DUDE). Anyway. What was I talking about? I got new boots last night. Hi.
[2:00am pst]
trouble started by Universal Donor
September 22, 2004 • 10:03 AM est • #

Comments from Foolish Amateurs:

Hey Broomy,

If FF sucks so bad, why don't you release your damn record and get famous already. Jesus. Take ACTION, bitch!

Plus PS -the FF single is good. It's that shitpuddle of a band the Killers who really take the international ass-sucking to a new level.

And but also - if FF was copping the Afghan Whigs, they wouldn't be on the radio.

Understand, I'm a Gentleman,
Mr. Perkins, who doesn't feel like signing up for any new online accounts this evening
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 1:30 AM est  


dude, don't hate on the whigs. if you met dulli in an alley, you'd have to change your name to mr. floppins. or something.
# posted by Blogger claude le monde : 11:34 AM est  


Yeah, CLM, I'm not sure that the comment above about FF not sounding like the Whigs qualified as "hating" on them Whigs. Maybe it was a Whiggy compliment from a Whig lover? But I don't understand anything anymore, after that famous all-night discussion about gelato/ Foucault/ David Blaine/ steel manufacturing. I'm just a lost poststructuralist lamb. I don't even know what that means. I don't know what THAT means.
# posted by Blogger Universal Donor : 12:47 PM est  


wait, you're right. i think. perkins?: hatest thou?
# posted by Blogger claude le monde : 4:29 PM est  


if i hated the whigs would i have quoted the chorus of "gentleman" on my sign off? or to put it more straightforward style: i have been known to immerse myself for hours in the splendor that is the whigs. however, i think ripping them off is not a surefire all-access pass to american radio, and i seriously doubt any band would consciously rip them off. a lot of times people just happen to write songs that sound like other songs. or, you know, take a zeppelin riff and put a disco beat behind it.

whatever. the idea of originality is like so totally passé. read your derrida. because i'm sure as hell not going to. especially not when there's a new season of america's next top model shifting into second gear.

ain't no tory,
Mr. Perkins
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 3:52 PM est  


wait, perkins, you're right, sorry.

i LOVE ANTM, too. i can't help it. it's a lot like having a seizure.
# posted by Blogger claude le monde : 12:49 PM est  


... a fucking *SWEET* seizure.

-Mr. Perkins
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 11:33 AM est  


Ummmm, Franz Ferdinand is not even on my top ten. I gushed, sure, and I like 'em a lot for sure but the Futureheads kinda totally scooped 'em in the scrawny slanty hair jump around music vein. Of course there are FAR WORSE poseur-acts out there such as Interpol, DFA, the Kills, the Killers, Modest Mouse, and the Pixies. Yes, kids, I hate to tell you this, but the Pixies have always sucked. Hard.
# posted by Blogger Mike McGonigal : 5:29 AM est  


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# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 9:38 PM est  


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