Music

It was a typical Tuesday morning. I was browsing through the used videocassette section of my local public library, musing over a fifty cent copy of “Hanging Up” when I heard a familiar phlegm-filled cough. My insides full of forebodings, I slowly turned around and faced my old high school nemesis and drinking buddy, Doug “Creosote” Huggins. His rangy limbs had not diminished in size and his shoulder length auburn hair was still flecked with pieces of orange carbohydrate from his job at the Cheezit cracker factory. “So, Neff,” he sneered in the inimitable Creosote way that so drove the women mad, “I see your taste in videocassettes has not improved.” I laughed in a manner that I hoped sounded courageous. “Not improved nothing Creosote. I was just considering purchasing this copy of Yankee Doodle Dandy, winner of three Academy Awards and item number 100 on the American Film Institute’s ‘100 Years…100 Movies’ ranking list.” He appeared dumbstruck but quickly recovered, putting on a contemptuous face. “And is your stomach still as weak as it used to be?” he asked, referring to the many shameful defeats I had suffered at his hands at the drinking table. “No,” I said, speaking boastfully. “Now my stomach is lined with iron unlike yours which is lined with cotton candy.” Once again he appeared dumbstruck but quickly spat out a retort. “Oh? Then perhaps we should test both your taste in videos and your digestional abilities with…a video-watching contest on the popular internet video site ‘You Tube’?”

We’d like to take a moment to let y’all know that Future Shock is brought to you by “The King of Beers,” Budweiser; American Apparel; and Halo 3 for the Xbox 360. (Excuse us for a moment, we have our tongues stuck in our cheeks).

And just why have we whored out our blog to corporate interests, you ask? Well, we’ve been doing the underpaid music journalism thang for way too long now, and have finally decided to barter our street cred for a big fat paycheck, just like some of the musicians and bands that announced upcoming concerts here in they Valley over the next few months. In other words, this week’s edition of Future Shock is all about the sellouts, baby. This isn’t a critique of their musical talents, per se (as we’re fans of each and every one of these dudes), but instead is an outlining of those who’ve sold their souls to the company store.

Like commandos descending from helicopters in the night, Turbonegro’s boisterous irreverence lands just in time to deliver a pinprick of humor to puncture rock’s ballooning self-importance. Theirs is a crowd-pleasing blow to the crotch of angst-ridden over-emoters and other phonies, resurrecting the idea that music should be fun and a…

Queens of the Stone Age cofounder/former bassist and Mondo Generator leader Nick Oliveri likes to play concerts in the nude. But, as Oliveri can readily attest, his, shall we say, “naturalist” approach is not without its hazards. He very nearly landed his naked ass in a Brazilian prison after Queens…

As he tries to launch a social movement that encourages people to address global warming and throw parties at the same time, Perry Farrell, usually chipper and optimistic in interviews, doesn’t mince words about the gravity of the crisis the human race now finds itself in. New Times caught up…

The kindly goblins who orchestrate the inner machinations of this here web-hole were nice enough to finally equip me with two things: 1) a list of links more befitting my “tendencies” and 2) an email account. So it is now that I beseech, nay, beg you to grace me with personal correspondence at matt.neff (at) newtimes.com. Suggestions, review requests, pizza recipes, and ferret-care tips are all welcome, but make sure you know what you’re doing—I don’t want to be knocked out in bed all week humming some nasty pop punk melody or sniveling with the woeful knowledge that I trimmed Chompy’s furry lil digging implements to the detriment of his (currently robust) health.

We’ve kinda had something of a contentious history with the folks at AZPunk (www.azpunk.com) over the past few years. The misfits and miscreants who populate the local Web site’s notorious message board have been known to rip us a new one for any number of reasons (such as slamming us for covering local musicians or scenesters that they feel don’t deserve any ink). But just like parents of naughty little children, we love ’em all just the same, which is why we wanna plug tonight’s AZPunk Fundraiser at the Wok Star, the rock club inside Scottsdale eatery Chop & Wok (7136 East Shea Boulevard).

In this week’s issue of the Phoenix New Times (on news stands now across the Valley), there’s a pretty off-the-chain profile in the music section by yours truly about local rapper Maja (a.k.a. H. Vincent Payne), a laid-back cat who offers a unique hip-hop style, whereby the 24-year-old drops rhymes chiefly about his love of anime, video games, ’80s cartoons, and other geeky topics de jour. The dude also lays down his lyrical dynamite in both English and Japanese (and occasionally even en Español), and has been a hit with nerdcore fans, Japanophiles, and other geeky types at the various anime conventions around the Southwest that he’s performed at, and even as far away as “The Land of the Rising Sun” (read: Japan).

Phoenix-based melodic rock group Runaway Diamonds has been asked to perform at the CMJ Music Marathon next month in New York. We’ve long been fans of the band’s quirky indie rock (we wrote a music feature about ’em earlier this year), and are glad to have them representing the PHX in NYC.