1. I want an oral history of the making of this album that includes commentary from the engineers, producers, Metallica’s management team and whoever Lou Reed happens to talk to now.  I want to know how and why this happened and who let it happen.
2. My favorite parts are when Hetfield starts singing right after Lou Reed’s done with his talking part.  Sometimes it sounds he tries to match Reed’s tone so that it isn’t too jarring.  No use Hetfield, everything on this album is jarring.
3. Is Lou Reed just using any words that rhyme?  Wait, did he always do this?
4. I kind of surprised how melodic “Brandenburg Gate” is for Metallica.  But perhaps they’ve always done this, I’m not going to start confessing that I listen to Metallica before this album.
5. This album will be a lot better 15 years from now when we can say “Remember when Lou Reed did an album with Metallica?!”  It’ll be a popular question that the quizzo robots of the 2020’s will use a lot.
6. “Lou Reed + _____” sounds weird at this point.  Metallica at least could work with a rapper (see: Ludacris rapping over Black Sabbath on the last Girl Talk album - it could work!), but Lou Reed pairing up with anyone else in the 21st Century is straight up bonkers.
7. Lars Ulrich is the last drummer that should be allowed to solo.
8. “Why do I cheat on meeeeaaah!”
9. So these songs were mostly recorded in one-take?  Seriously?  Wow.  Totally doesn’t sound like it.
10. After listening to “Frustration” for the second time I think I have it figured out.  This is the musical version of The Room, right?
11. “Little Dog” is the most worthless song ever.
12. “Dragon” sounds like Metallica wrote half a song and Lou Reed wrote half a song and when they brought them together they considered it a song.
13. This isn’t restricted to Lulu, but do people really think Metallica is good?  There are so many heavier and more inventive metal bands than them.  Are they the metal band for people that don’t like metal?
14. Listening to Lou Reed’s lyrics on this album reminds me how lucid and awesome Bob Dylan still is.
15. I really don’t like Metallica, but this is clearly Lou Reed’s fault.

So yesterday I went to a Henry Rollins book signing at a record store in the city.  The line wasn’t long, but it was taking a while.  Turns out that Henry was taking the time to talk to everyone and people walking away had big smiles on their faces, a few of them even exclaiming “what a nice guy!” as they left.

So I had to ask him something.  I scanned the walls of new CDs and came across one of those dumb “Very Best of…” Thin Lizzy compilation CDs.  They left off a ton of good songs, which was probably inevitable since Thin Lizzy was one of the best rock and roll bands ever.

I knew Henry Rollins liked them.  I think he even wrote about them once, but I knew without a doubt that he liked them.

So after he shook my hand and signed my copy of Get In The Van, I asked him what his favorite Thin Lizzy song was.

“That’s a good question.”  And then he stared off for maybe five seconds, which I delighted in.  I couldn’t ask for more, he was actually thinking about my silly question.

“Well, ‘Jailbreak’ is just a great song.  But for me, it’s all about the ballads,” because that’s where Phil Lynott really shined.  I agreed.

He went on to say that his favorite Thin Lizzy song was “Wild One” from 1975’s Fighting album.  He said that everytime he broke up with a girlfriend he would put on that song and lament how that one got away.

Although he didn’t ask me, my favorite Thin Lizzy song is “Hollywood (Down On Your Luck).”

I’m constantly reading things on the internet, everyday; in fact it’s my only source of information.  I’ve disciplined myself enough that I don’t hear the useless chatter of traditional forms of consuming news.  I’m happy that I don’t know the exact circumstances of what Hank Williams Jr. said or what happened to him and I still don’t know what that latest murder court case was about or what happened.  I don’t need that noise and I’m better for it.

The current internet though has the comment option at the bottom of almost every piece of content published.  It’s so prevalent that when websites like Grantland don’t give the unwashed masses the ability to include their uninformed two cents, it feels quiet, like a library.  Often I do like the comments on articles as it can give a sense of the audience’s reaction, which alarmingly lines up with the original content in the first place. The only disconnect I can think of is The A.V. Club where the content is usually smart but the comments are among the dumbest.

But recently I’ve been reading the things I always read on the internet and enjoying them, but avoiding the comments.  I’m not sure exactly why, but I’m just sick of the “sounds interesting” or “why this is wrong” or “exactly” that you usually get.  If you have something to say, publish some media yourself and put some thought into it.  Do enough research that you can make a informed thought that pushes the conversation forward.  Curated sites like Hacker News do this all the time in which well thought out responses are created in curated on a topic, today it was the topic of Google’s new programming language Dart.  Until then, don’t waste everyone’s time.

It’s on Fuse now.  The format is completely different, but it basically comes down to two guests and a musical performance.  It doesn’t appear that he has a studio or an audience because he was on location in some museum in L.A. for the intro and first sit-down guest.

Here’s another way to put it. The wise Ron Bennington once said in response to the disappointing ending of Lost that “just once I want something to live up to the hype.”

“Video Games” is the hype.  And probably the best song too.

The internet can be strange.  The above video is going “viral” (not really, only 313K+ views that this point) and people are going bonkers for it.  Her distant looks and lack of solid information out there about her lead to intrigue and mystery.  Where did she come from, why only a few songs?  Many people have commented about how this isn’t available yet on iTunes and they can’t wait to spend their money on it. 

It’s all strange because Lana Del Rey has potentially already peaked in terms of excitement from her audience.  Once people know the real story, which this guy seems to have uncovered, it won’t be quiet as intriguing; she’s a singer like many others that have done some things.  “Video Games” will still be a great song, but the actual product of the album coming out in a few months won’t be as startling as this song and this video at this time in early August 2011.  Not that I’m writing her off already, she’s an excellent singer, but there’s something that can be said about that immediacy and very small period of time and I don’t necessarily see it as a bad thing.

If I was her I wouldn’t be posting on Twitter and Facebook because otherwise people would just imagine her doing extravagant things in Hollywood, not sitting in front of a computer responding to her fans.

This is insane.  Minority Report is here!

The Feel Good Hit of the Summer!  With Dillinger Four on hiatus again (and their last album was kind of weak, sad to say), I dub Fucked Up as The One Good Punk Band.