 
The
Deathbag
A Column by John Richards
THE
GREATEST DECADE EVER.
The most
celebrated radio station in the free world had
its countdown of the best albums/artists of the decade known as the 90s. Seattle's own KCMU asked the
public to vote for this and it was one perfect
countdown. Once all the fat was trimmed (one
local label which shall remain anonymous thought
it would be cute to vote for all 5 or 6
artists on their label. Which is insulting on
many levels, but the worst level is the one where
they actually think we wouldnt notice!). It was a
very complete, informative look at this wonderful
decade of music. We must no
forget there were also many, MANY examples of
what was wrong with this decade and we here at The
Deathbag couldnt let this year end without bitching and moaning about
what was wrong with the decade that brought us an Mtv
that no longer actually SHOWS videos, an
ex-Menudo/Soap Opera star who will be on
everyones worst of lists as soon as everyone
figures out he is the anti-Christ, bands and artists who
preach the indie life style and sell their music
to Miller Beer for $180,000 (and dont think that
indie didnt get a cut!) and a very disturbing
trend of new bands that are ripping off artists I
listened to growing up and I'm only 26 freaking
years old! And then there was Hanson and
Silverchair. The third and fourth sign of the
apocolypse...
In the decade 90, Seattle went from a happy,
happening hotbed of musical reativeness where
bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney and
Soundgarden would not only still play around town
but would collaborate constantly together be it
live or be it in the studio. It was a magical
place where every night you could find an
unbelievable show choked to the back of a club on
a Thursday with people of all ages going ape shit
from start to finish of a set. This ended, bands
broke up and moved on and we slowly became a
center for bands who couldnt make it in their own
hometowns. A punchline to a joke. A place where
old Flop posters are up on a wall in a well to do
uppity restaurant for the quirkiness of it all.
Quality in music, venue and people dropped
drastically. If Seattle came into the 1990s as the leader in all
that is good and pure it ended as the city full
of empty clubs, no all age venues, not one drop
of excitement musically and a good chance of
being destroyed by terrorists on New Years Day. More on that in the
next Deathbag, let's get to the worst that music
had to offer...
1. Gerardo Rico
Suave. Sure this is an easy target but one must
learn from mistakes from the past. He is a
mistake. Ricky Martin is a mistake. 'NSync are a
mistake. Ricky Shroeder changing his name
to Rick is a mistake, Brittany Spears is a
mistake, shes a hot mistake, but nonetheless,
shes still a mistake.
2. Anything to
do with the Macarena. Another easy target, but a
very important target. Most people dont know that
Macarena means Stupid fucks who will follow any
trend when translated.
3. Andrew Ridgely's
solo album, so bad we can't remember the
name of it. The least he could have done was to
jack off in a public restroom somewhere to get
some hype.
4. Queensryche's
Q2K, Yes's YES2K, Crosby Stills Old
and Dumbs CSNandY2K, Will Smiths Willinemiunm.
The first three spell washed up and the last one
misspells throw up.
5. Kevin Rowland
of Dexys Midnight Runner -on Creation-
Sold 500 copies worldwide. I've spit on more
people then who have bought this record. You
should take the time to spit on anyone who buys
this record.
7. Limp Bizkit.
I dont think Ive ever listened to Limp Bizkit,
but I hate them.
8. Offspring. I
HAVE heard Offspring. Am I the only person on
Earth who sees that they are aliens! They are
here to kill us all! Don't you know that!? Cant
you see!? Mind control, it's the only
explanation.
9. Days of the
New, Alanis, Lit, Mariah Carey. Alanis and Mariah
don't even look good naked. Days of the New have
never been good since Bo and Hope got divorced
and Lit is just stupid.
9. REM. Quick,
name any song on any of their last 4 albums? Who
knew the drummer with the giant eyebrow held this
band together? That confirms my theory on the
magnetic power of the unibrow.
10. Candle box.
Repeat after me, they are not a Seattle band, they are NOT a Seattle band, they moved here
because they suck, they moved here because they
suck, they are not a good band, they are not a
good band, they are not even a band, they are not
even a band that plays music, they are no longer
around, they are no longer alive... if enough of
you say it, the last one may come true!
11. The Counting
Crows. The lead Crow, after finally making it in
the biz, put in hair extensions, moved to LA and
said that he had to go there to blend in with
other famous people. Do you mean other famous fat
fucks who put in hair extensions on their white
boy afros? Oh, THOOOOSE famous people. Gotcha.
12. Hootie and
the Blowfish. I saw Hootie when they came into
town. They put on a great show. They sold
millions and millions of albums. Their name is
HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH.
13. Stone Temple
Pilots. I am I am I said I want to rip you off. I
said I said I want to get fuuuuuucked up. I wanna
wanna get close to skill. I want I want to burn
out to soon. Scott, Scott Wieland (s?), earth to
Scott, you perform in a dress thirty years after
Iggy and Bowie did it, no one cares. You sound
like Eddie Vedder 5 years after Eddie sounded
like Eddie Vedder, no one cares. You get
publicity for going into rehab every month and a
half, no one cares. You break up the band, no one
cares. You end up with Courtney Love for a short time, which
over 400 men have already done for the sake of
doing it, no one cares. You should have overdosed
or killed yourself the first year you were
popular, that way people would actually seek out
your music in ten years.
14. Courtney Love's
Hole. Someone has had to have made
that joke before, right? RIGHT? Who would have
thought driving the greatest musical genius of
our decade, if not one of the
greatest geniuses ever, to blowing his head off
with a shotgun would do so much for a career. The
first album, I admit, was very good. The last
album, I admit, sounds worse than most things
that come out of my ass.
15. Marilyn Manson. If he were to perform
music without his costume, make up and persona it
would be like listening to the Grateful Dead
without being on drugs.
16. Puff Daddy.
In my day they sued bastards like this. My day
was 4 years ago.
17. Kid Rock. I can't find it in my
heart to criticize a man who travels and performs
with a midget. I can't find it in my heart to
criticize a man who is smart enough to
rip off everything that is popular in music and
combine it into whatever it is that he combines it into. I
can't even find it in my heart to criticize a man who never washes his
hair, dresses like a pimp on a pimp's day off and
never is without a dirty porn star on his arm. He shouldn't be on this
list, I'm sorry. This guy is my
fucking hero. I just WANT to hate him.
18. Jewel. She
is the plague of the twentieth century. The
plague from Alaska. Who knew Alaska would produce
the plague? I curse whoever gave her any kind of
encouragement growing up.
19. DJ Jazzy
Jeff and his bitch ass fresh underachieving
side kick prince. Wills formula is easy. Find a
song that was a hit in the seventies, add a beat
or two and call it his own. Make sure to market
it to 12 year olds with no history of music
whatsoever. Thats his current formula, his old
formula created Parents Just Dont Understand.
Actually now I understand why he has his current
formula. Nevermind.
20. Metallica. Am I the only one who
remembers OLD Metallica? Not just the hard core,
headbanging, earth shattering Metallica but the Metallica who swore to never make
a video, cut their hair or sell out to the man?
Your videos suck, your haircuts suck and your on
all fours you lying bastards. Kill em All!
Whatever.
Enough of my
hatred, here are some others from some good
friends:
Matthew from a famous Seattle band writes:
1. "I Will
Buy You a New Life" by Everclear: The rhyme
scheme sucks. He rhymes "new" with
"new" a lot in this song. Actually,
everything by Everclear sucks, but I think this
might be the worst one.
2. "Save
Yourself" by Stabbing Westward: This song
never gets stuck in my head. Thank god for the
Super-Ego.
3. "Let's
Go Steady" by the Cinematics: This is the
dumbest fucking song I've ever heard. They were
on the cover of "Gig" magazine, and
there was a list of all their gear in there, too.
Oh, I meant "backline."
4. "Live
Through This" by Hole: Specifically, the
version with Kurt on backing vocals. It's way too
creepy for words and, more importantly, it sounds
like shit. I mean, it's really, really terrible.
Reef from KTL
writes:
The Farm -
Groovy Train and any other song they ever
recorded in their horrible career. Picture the
scene - it's getting to the end of the 80's - you
are a poor, white Manchester boy, living in a city where
the local football teams are still getting
fuck-off spanked by The Scouse Bastards and Those
Cockney Gunner Fucks, all your friends who can
afford it are moving to London 'cause the streets
are paved with gold and the rich, beautiful women
are 'into a bit of uncultured Northern Rough,
right?,' and there's really nothing much to say
about your home-town except that theres a lot of
factories and drug-gang-warfare and the G-MEX
Centre. Sure, you still have the ace musical
heritage of Joy Divvy, New Order and The Fall,
but all the cool new music is coming from poncey
floppy-boy towns like fucking Oxford. Hmmm.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a wonderful, wonderful
'Manchester And Vicinity' Scene is created part
on purpose, part by accident, and bands like The
'appy Mondays, The Stone Roses and The Charlatans
are making the NW look like the coolest place to
live in the fooking country, right? Sorted, you
think, until out of nowhere come The fucking
Farm, the ugliest bunch of rag-tag muppets to
ever make it out of The Mersey Tunnel, and with
the horrible white-boy-groove enema of a record
called 'Groovy Train' landing at number one on
Top Of The bleeding Pops, your region's fate is
sealed and everyone who was praising your area is
now laughing at it and all bragging rights are
shot and so you move to London with all the
Cockney Shandy-Drinking Poofs and find the
streets are paved with shit and bombs go off all
the time and there's race-riots outside your flat
on a daily basis but yeah, the sexy rich women ARE into a
bit of Northern Soul, and theres a new scene
starting there with Suede and Blur and stuff so its all
cool, and then you move to America or something.
Erin from
Portland Writes:
Hmmm Kenny G's
Greatest Hits should to rank up there as one of
the worst. Who the hell decided those were his
greatest hits? Anyway, that dude has a gigantic
head, it's ungodly.
Candlebox's
album was pretty shitty.
That one Cher
song with that video of her on the deck of some
fuckin' warship. And all the dudes where drooling
over her goofy S&M outfit and she had a
tattoo or her ass that looked like she just let
loose a load in her G-string.
Recently I think
Creed, Korn and Limp Bizkit are pretty much skid
marks on the musical underwear of life.
Dr Leon Berman
of KCMU Shake the Shack Fame writes:
Oh Johnny -
The Theme Song
from The Titanic Movie by Celine Dion has got to
be not only the worst song, but also the most
annoying... the masses are a sick bunch. I rank
it right up there with having a nail hammered
through my left testicle.
John from Duvall
Washington writes:
1. Kill Army-
"Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars", I hate
rap but this album really sucks. The best
solution for this band is to remain silent and
kill themselves.
2. Michael
Jackson - "His Story" when I want 75
minutes of a man having sex with children I go to my
porn stash not my record player.
3. Madonna
"her latest trash" pick a fucking
persona you psychotic schizophrenic slut
4 SHAQ
"Shaq Diesel" do I have to fucking say
anything
5
"Apocallyptica" Although I loved this album it might not
be amusing to others to hear 4 cellos rocking out
to Metallica.
Jenny from a
very Sub famous Pop label writes:
Worst of the 90's is the current *Rape
Rock* selection we have to choose from..
Limp Bizquit
Korn etc.
that's my 2
cents.
Local Jazz DJ Abe writes (and I add witty
comments):
Pearl Jam: Ten
(You can tell Abe is from Seattle)
Stone Temple
Pilots: Core (You can REALLY tell Abe is from Seattle)
Candlebox:
Candlebox (Abe can tell THEY aren't
from Seattle)
U2: Zooropa
(Their tour came through Seattle with a giant lemon on
stage, complete with sucking sound).
Green Day:
Dookie (I saw them spit into the mouths of their
fans when they played the Gorge outside of Seattle, it was the best thing
about their show besides the part, and I quote,
"We don't need that Mtv shit anymore. We are
done making videos. We never used to need them
and we don't need them anymore!" Crowd goes
nuts, Green Day goes on to make 6 more videos.)
No Doubt: Tragic
Kingdom (Tragic Album)
Dave Matthews
Band: Crash (Hike up your skirt a little more and
show the world to me. Play that fucking CD on the
radio a little more and I'll destroy your world
for you.)
Puff Daddy: No
Way Out (Puff rhymes with Enough)
Jewel: A Night
Without Armor: Poems by Jewel (A poem by Jewel is
like a shower without water)
Its now the year
2000, Y2K was a AOK (Sorry) and
the world awaits technology that will allow us to
download, access, purchase, control, create and
do things we don't even understand yet with
music. But let's not forget, just because its
accessible doesn't mean its any good. Quality is
still an issue. Just look at Seattle in the early 1990s, people thought that was
the beginning. It was, the
beginning of the end.
And hey, lets be
careful out there.
Keep tuned to www.kcmu.org. Something good and live
is going to happen...
The Deathbag
3000 is just getting started.
Send gifts,
shuffleboard challenges and that magic dirt I
hear so much about to:
john@lovelessrecords.com
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open for business at www.lovelessrecords.com
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