The Rabid Mice Re-Crash Christmas

14 11 2008

Rabid Mice Crash Christmas

Just in time for the holiday season Oblivious Records is re releasing 1988’s most endearing Christmas album- The Rabid Mice Crash Christmas. The timeless collection of re-imagined Christmas favourites and all original tunes of dysfunctional seasonal merriment -from Edmonton’s forgotten retarded children of the 80’s Brad Ray , Myles Christiansen, and Cam Bennet-  will leave you feeling like a Christmas turkey- a cold picked over carcass violated with Stove Top Stuffing.

Following in the footsteps of recent releases from AC DC and Gun n Roses, who both signed exclusive retail agreements with Wal-Mart and Best Buy respectively, The Rabid Mice have agreed to sell their un paralleled Recording of Christmas Buggery exclusively in Darky’s Pawn Shop, North America wide, on November 23 2008 . Select stores will be holding special midnight openings to celebrate the re-release -complete with drunken groping Santas and live appearances of the uncanny Rabid Mice tribute band, The Diarrheic Lemmings, at select locations. Given Darky’s Pawn Shops are always located in the heart of the any city’s sexiest districts, expect all 5 dollar hookers to wear Santa hats while offering rodent insertion specials.

Darky’s owner and namesake, Ray Darky, had this to say about the event, “With one convenient location, on 97 street on Edmonton Alberta, Darky’s Pawn Shop is at the forefront of many cultural revolutions and looks forward to a long and prosperous relationship with the Rabid Mice “

*************************************************

For those unable to make it down to Darky’s Rabid Mice extravaganza, The Rabid  Mice RE-Crash Christmas will be available for purchase and download from this site as of December 1 2008. There will be 3 separate packages available to fit any price range, each with exclusive bonus materials -only available here for a limited time

  1. The Lump of Coal Special. It includes all 14 Christmas songs for download plus 3 early 1986 demos: To Hell With…, Rabid Mice, Mary had a Little Lamb- $6.99
  2. The Cheap Chinese Knock-Off of the Present You Really Wanted. This includes all of the above, plus a hard copy of the CD and replicas of 3 early gig posters and a vile of mouse dropping from the restaurant Brad Ray worked at in 1985, mailed to your door no earlier than the day after Christmas- $15.99
  3. Santa’s Special Present Just for You…But Don’t Tell Your Parents. In addition to everything offered in the previous two packages, this also comes with a vinyl copy of the album with 2 brand new Rabid Mise* tracks recorded just for this release- ” Stephen Harper is a Fruit” and “Punk Rockers Today Require More Therapy”-$39.99

RM4 rABID RabidMice 2

Right now, I know you are thinking “Oh My God, this is way too good to be true. There must be a catch?” and right you are right; There is a catch. If you pre-order in the next 24 hours we will throw in  copy of Cam Bennet’s memoirs ” I Was Ozzy Osbourne  Every Tuesday  From 7:30 to 10:00- Confessions of a Karaoke King”

Act now! Supplies will be limited!

Here are a selection of of Rabid Reviews:

“This Album left me feeling dirty and violated. At least there is some truth in their advertising”- Ryan Altman Spin Magazine.

“It is like Bing Crosby’s corpse was re-animated and used in sick rituals, just in time for Christmas”- David Finche Rolling Stone.

“They kind of sound like Corrosion of Conformity, only lacking any sense of musical timing and melody.” Clint Puzio- Raptor Tattoo.

“This is the  first album that will truly offend Secular Winter Festival celebrators as much as right wing Christian Traditionalists, welcome the Age of Moral Decay.”  Jerry Fawell leader of the Moral Majority.

Track Listings:

  1. I Saw Daddy Blowing Santa Claus…Away
  2. Santa’s Dead!!!
  3. Frosty’s  Little Secret
  4. Oh Come All Ye Wasted
  5. Jesus is a Mexican
  6. Daddy Turned Santa into the INS
  7. Santa is a Anti Semite
  8. We Three Kings
  9. Bang Your Head-rumpa-pum-pum
  10. I Asked Santa for Transformers and All I Got was this Crappy Go Bot
  11. White XXX-mas
  12. Snowballing Isn’t as Fun as it Sounds
  13. Pagan Winter Solstice Slam Dance Party
  14. The Mice Are Peeing in Your Eggnog While You Sleep

The mouse pack

* Rabid Mise are not to be confused with The Rabid Mice. Rabid Mise are a separate unrelated entity formed by Lance Jacobs. For three gigs in 1989 Lance was the bassist after Myles was injured in an unfortunate pyrotechnic accident involving a can of hairspray.


Comments : No Comments »
Tags : , , , , ,
Categories : Cynical Music Reviews, Pop Cultural Refuse

Motley Crue Served with a Side of Denial in a Hat

16 04 2008
The never ending reunion tour, of all things 80s, just won’t stop. In an attempt to get press for a forth coming the_crue album, tour, and movie Motley Crue  (a band specializeing in greatest hits packages since 1991) is releasing their new single “The Saints Of Los Angeles “ exclusively as a playable song on Rock Band- a video game that features drums, guitars and singing- proving ” you can teach an old dog new tricks”- just don’t tell him he is too old to use lip stick and hair spray.

Now, I am a Crue Head Old Skool, that grew up in working class redneck suburbia of Edmonton. I discovered Motley Crue in 1984, when a friend gave me a taped tape of “Shout at the Devil”( This was file sharing in the 80s with out the fear of federal prosecution)  and  told me it was a band called Accept. It would be 6 months of obsessive  listening to that tape  before someone informed me it was in fact Motley Crue.

Girls Girls GirlsI immediately ran down to Sam the Record Man in West Edmonton Mall and looked. Sure enough, filed under “M”, was a bad ass looking album, with a bad ass pentagram on the cover and hot bad ass looking chicks on the back. Fortunately, I never shared this perception (before I discovering the truth) with the mullet heads of the smoke pit behind Stratford Junior High- or I never would have lived it down.

Of all the concerts I lie about seeing in my youth (Judas Priest’s Defenders Tour 84, Nirvana at the Commodore in Vancouver 91), Motley Crue at Scandals Disco in Edmonton 82 is my favourite to bullshit about- never mind that I was 12 and not of legal drinking age. Rational thinking doesn’t come into play when you are revising personal history, to impress women in dive bars and strangers on Motley Crue Message boards.

After releasing their 3rd greatest hits package in 99, they did the relive-your-past-tour with the Scorpions. As the 80s retro movement and revisionist rock historians had yet to gain popular acceptance, it was poorly attended. There were only about 5000 people in GM Place (Vancouver), the bulk of whom were wide asses stuffed into old spandex, thinning mullets hidden under conspicuous trucker hats, and a smattering of hipster douchebags laughing at the irony of it all.

2000 saw Nikki’s side project 58, release a song and video exclusively on the internet, about 6 months before Napster would ring the death bell for the music industry in its present form. It was brilliant, experimental, electronic, industrial poetry and gave me hope for the coming Crue album New Tattoo.

Well hope is an ideologically abstract concept promoted by religion to give strength in times of crisis.

New Tattoo was just a steaming pile of shit that sounded like it had been written and recorded in a week after Nikki had stayed up all night listening to their first 5 albums, snorting cocaine, banging heroin and ripping himself off … poorly.

The resulting album and tour was under-whelming.

They released there 8thgreatest hits package- 2005’s Red White and Crue, at the height of 80’s retro revival- scored a top 40 hit with a song written by Canadian Emo/punk band Simple Plan, and toured the world for 2 and a half year milking it for all it was worth. When they could no longer get money out of aging head bangers in Los Angeles, Vancouver, New York or Raleigh North Carolina they spent the last 3 months hitting epicentres of the universe like Kelowna and Prince George BC.

The Corporate entity “Motley Crue” was suing Tommy Lee’s manager last year, for giving him bad advice- which included holding a gun to his head to get him to do the crapfest that was“Tommy Lee Goes to College”. The suit was settled out of court and the band put aside their differences long enough to record a new album, “The Saints of Los Angeles”. A soundtrack to the movie based, on the book The Dirt.

Tommy Lee has promised not to film his reality/porno “Tommy Does Pamela ….Again”, featuring Kid Rock (with a TommydoespamelaAgain Rap/Alt Country/soundtrack album of duets with Kid Rock), until after the tour and release of the  movie.

I hope the new album is good and generates some new singles that can be played live, but that depends more on the fans willingness to accept new music, than it does Nikki’s song writing skills.

They will be Touring through the summer, under the banner Crue-fest, with Buck Cherry, Papa Roach, and Sixx Am (Nikki’s other, better band). They will be playing Northlands Coliseum on August 13th and I just might have to do a pilgrimage home to Edmonton, though the spandex, fishnet stockings, and leather chaps will have stay in the hope chest.


Comments : No Comments »
Tags : , ,
Categories : Cynical Music Reviews, Pop Cultural Refuse, Stories That Are 85% True

The New Guns N’ Roses Album

13 04 2008

AP-For 14 years Axl Rose has teased the world with the mythical album, Chinese Democracy. The album has allegedly cost Geffen Records 13 million dollars, so in an age where the biggest hits sell one quarter of what they did in 1991, Geffen Records is understandably worried and hopeful . Jerry Blair of Geffen’s promotional department was quoted today;

It goes with out saying that the music business is in a transitional period.That is why we here at Geffen Records are excited to distribute and album that has been in the consciousness of America for 14 years yet never having sold a unit. It offers us a chance to explore new distribution methods and unique cross promotional ideas.

It was reported last week, that the album is set to be released in conjunction with a reality show featuring Axl Rose, that has been described a a cross between The Bachelor and Some Kind of Monster. Also earlier in the month Dr Pepper announced that is would give every man women and child in America a free Dr Pepper if Chinese Democracy was released in 2008. This prompted Axl to come out of hiding and say;

We are surprised and very happy to have the support of Dr Pepper with our album “Chinese Democracy,” as for us, this came totally out of the blue. If there is any involvement with this promotion by our record company or others, we are unaware of such at this time. And as some of Buckethead’s performances are on our album, I’ll share my Dr Pepper with him.

Axl Rose

This fuelled speculation that Axl might actually rise to the challenge and release the album, so it came as no surprise when it was announced Geffen had the finished Album in hand. It did surprise, even insiders, that the album’s name was changed…

Dr Pepper's LHCB

…to Dr Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Which ironically will make Dr Pepper’s offer to give free Dr Pepper with the release of Chinese Democracy void.

So far there is no truth to the rumour that they plan to made the album into a musical movie complete with a re-recorded soundtrack album featuring George Michael as the Axl Rose Character.

Many Thanks to Lee Kempster


Comments : No Comments »
Tags : , , ,
Categories : Cynical Music Reviews, Fake News, Pop Cultural Refuse

Guns and (Wouldn’t You Like to be a Pepper Too) Roses

11 04 2008

450px-Axl_Rose_toy

Guns ‘N Roses only live in the consciousness of the world, 22 years after it was created, because of a legendry album(Appetite for Destruction), a fairly good Acoustic E.P.(GNR Lies), a great album of music spread over 2 CDs(Use Your Illusions), and an imaginary album(Chinese Democracy) that has become a mythical beast over time.

Chinese Democracy has stayed in the peripheral vision of pop culture because songs pop up online ever now and then, like blurry photos of Bigfoot, only to disappear and show up again later re-worked, re- produced, and re-leaked in an attempt to find public approval.

This has kept Guns ‘N Roses in the sub conscious of America longer than if there had been a string of pale Appetite clones, and  tours every 2 years, beating the same tired songs to death. In fact the only thing Axl could have done to build more of a legend  would have been  die of a drug overdose or kill himself while wearing Converse sneakers.

It may have taken 14 years and 13 million dollars, but Guns ‘N Roses fans will be able to finally relax and enjoy a refreshing Dr. Pepper, while grooving to Chinese Democracy on the FM radio, because (as it was recently reported)  Axl Rose has delivered the  finished album to Geffen Records.  For the purposes of this Blog, I will assume this to be true. Now excuse me for a moment while I take a double dose of my anti cynicism medication.

Six songs have been leaked and re-leaked over 14 years; There Was a Time, Better,The Blues,Madagascar,IRS,and Catcher in the Rye. These are not the industrial techno songs traditionalists feared, nor are they the crotch grabbing sleazers the same stuck-in-87s wanted. These songs sound like something that came out a few years after Use Your Illusions I and II. The guitars, while not Slash, effectively mimic his tone. The songs are epic and sweeping melodramas that may be a bit over produced. 

Of them all,There Was a Time is the one I had to go back and listen to a few times and Google the lyrics. It has the familiarity of peanut butter and banana sandwiches and certain lesbian ex-fiancees (another story). It is part four of Axl’s “My Mother Didn’t Breast Feed Me” saga- about his dysfunctional Love/Hate relationships with women- which include Don’t Cry, November Rain, and Estranged- but it is laced with cynicism that can only come from a decade of failed relationships. The song is also called T.W.A.T.

With a title like Chinese Democracy, I would hope there to be a broader snap shot of the world, coloured with optimism and hope, and not just 14 songs of narcissism and regret. Maybe the album will be a 1 million dollar a song- OK album, that can not possibly live up to the hype. Maybe Chinese Democracy is a metaphor for things that will never happen…. like true love, reunions, recapturing the glory of our prime, and 80s cock rockers aging gracefully. Maybe this record will sell 3 million copies but the company will say, “Axl, Axl, Axl Baby in this age that is equivalent to selling like 30 million LP’s, but by our records you still owe us 9 million baby… would you consider doing a reality program that is like The Osbournes meets The Bachelor?”

Then again maybe Chinese Democracy will be the greatest album, since well Appetite, released in time to coincide with the Beijing Olympics, with a back drop of violent Tibetan protests that lead to the most significant ideological changes since the wall came down, inspiring Americans to unite behind Obama, ushering in the a new age of compassion and change and world wide unity….

……but regardless it will forever be remembered as the Dr Pepper ™ Album


Comments : No Comments »
Tags : , , ,
Categories : Cynical Music Reviews, Pop Cultural Refuse