Why was John Lennon more interesting than Paul McCartney? Because he had issues, he had been abandoned, he was full of rage, he was hurt. Paul didn't give a fuck about anything, everything was usually handed to him, but who was a better writer? why, John, of course. In the fashion of Lester Bangs, take no prisoners, show no mercy and always, I mean always, take a piss in the flower pot. It won't make you popular, but you'll feel better about yourself. When the long dormant urge to write returned to me, I found myself desperately in need of an outlet. I started submitting movie reviews to Netflix. My favorite was a review I wrote for "Seven Pounds" the Will Smith mega-bomb "This movie sucked the life out of me as fast as Rosario Dawson's failing heart was doing to her." Only a couple were posted, it seems Netflix wants to encourage people to rent their movies. I tried Amazon and C-Net (back in the days of C-Net Music) I submitted a few album reviews to Amazon, the only one I remember was a review of The Beach Boys "Wild Honey" which I described as the masterpiece that Brian Wilson was trying to make during the aborted "Smile" sessions. At C-Net I would review new artists, I suggested to some poor wanna-be rapper from Denver that he learn these words "May I take your order please" because his future was in fast food not music. Although most artists requested feedback when they uploaded their music, apparently criticism wasn't what they had in mind. I moved over to CD Baby, it's still my top source for New Mexico music but there's plenty of rotten eggs in that basket. After writing a few "nice" reviews (The Beat Cowboys, Sticky Pistils, Long Gone Trio) I submitted some that had an edge to them, including a review of an album by Elu (Jeff Mettling's now defunct new age project) it never saw the light of day. Maybe it's because I raised the question of "Who's going to kiss this pig?" after comparing the album to a pig with lipstick. It seems that CD Baby wants to move product and negative user reviews are counter productive. They're all poseurs anyway, their in-house writers will give anything a good review. I like how they compare some local hack to an established musician, while trying to sound hip and witty: "Sounds like Toby Keith on meth, recommended for those who like: Toby Keith." (wouldn't Toby Keith on meth sound just like he does now?) Click Here To Buy.
