butthead aka 216

What is This Journal?

This is a place for me to write about 2 things. 1) Music, which will most likely be emo or emo influenced. Instead of reviewing albums, I will just be writing about bands I've been listening to and posting a couple songs or bullshitting about whatever I want about them. 2) Bitch about and add commentary on things that I think contribute to the Pussification of America. Maybe this will lead to less bitching on the rest of the forum from me. Maybe not. But I can't take it anymore and need this release. If a man lives with 6 women in a home, he needs his man cave. Musicbanter is that house and this is my man cave. I hope others will find some things as ridiculous as I do, and can help recommend me songs and bands based on my tastes. My short-lived Emo Journal didn't work out, but even in that short time I had a lot of people comment or message me about music, which was cool.

Speaking of that Emo Journal, whats up with that, man?

What's up with it is that it was a bad idea. It was a bad idea from the aspect that I am not working for a music review site. Trollheart can sit there a beautifully type out visual descriptions of songs and albums. I can't find the words for it, and because I am learning emo in reverse, there's not a lot of prior knowledge to draw from for comparisons. So consider it done. Also, consider the rap Journal done, though it hardly started. Why? Cause I don't go on plug anymore to find random rap artists. Because half the rooms are Portuguese. And the other half slurp donkey cock.

What's with the title?

It's an Artie Lange quote and he kicks ass. I don't hate therapy or people who use it, but it fits. Let's goooooo.


What butthead aka 216 has been listening to lately:



So, like I said, I have been learning and listening to emo in reverse. Meaning that my first tastes of emo were all 3rd-wave emo and other emo-influenced bands of that time period. Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Motion City Soundtrack, Dashboard Confessional, Alkaline Trio, The Used, Death Cab, etc. Before you snicker at my terrible music tastes or think up a snarky reply about how half of those bands aren't emo, please tongue my taint because I don't care and I am trying to give the idea of what music listening background I am coming from.

So anyways, I feel like a dipshit for never really listening to bands like The Get Up Kids before. Just one of hundreds of bands I had been recommended over the years and told myself I would eventually listen to. It's funny now that I can see their influence on bands like Motion City Soundtrack with the synth usage. To me, the synth just blends in nicely with some darker tones mixed with a pop-emo/punk/whatever sound.

Their second album, Something To Write Home About, sounds a lot different than the handful of songs I heard from Four Minute Mile. Different because of the synthesizer keyboards. Basically what happened was the guy from Reggie and the Full Effect joined up to create bonerrific tunes. I've yet to really listen to much past their 2nd album and I am looking forward to it.

Here's another favorite of mine from the album:




So before The Get Up Kids were delivering half chubs to my boxers, I first started listening to Jets To Brazil. A few months back I googled "Best emo bands" and got a list of feces made by goth 15 year old chicks. I saw Aiden on the list, briefly considered suicide, then aimlessly clicked some Google links until I found some random forum that seemed to take their music seriously (don't worry, wasn't MB). What I found was a Top 100 list of all-time great Emo songs. At the top was Jets To Brazil - Sweet Avenue. I listened to it and loved it more than a post-sex piss. So I listened to more and was really feeling it. When I Googled "Artists like Jets to Brazil," a band called Knapsack came up, who I'd never heard of. I decided to make them the subject for my 2nd emo journal review which never happened.

I listened to the This Conversation is Over Starting Right Now album and thought it was the equivalent to a Carmer Electra tittyfuck. If you've been in plug with me, you've heard this song several times:




If you haven't been in plug with me, you're likely a turd. But here's another song from the album:



I'm not even sure why I am really digging emo music. I don't really relate to any of the lyrics anymore and haven't for several years. Maybe it's best to just not try to figure it out. Maybe I am actually a 16 year old confused kid time travelling from 2001 with a lot of time on his hands to create alternate identities to fool internet strangers and gain nothing from it.


Facial expression of most of society when someone calls them a name they don't like.

Since I'm not always great at segways... Fuck all this bullying shit. I feel like parents in this country are consciously making an effort to turn their children into complete vaginas. Pretty soon the penises of young boys will start falling off and their bodies will regenerate big floppy twats in their places by the time they have reached middle school. A few weeks back, some kid's whiny mom tried to castrate him by filing a 'bullying report' because his football team lost by too many points.

I really do long for the days when I could call sit at my computer while eating a turkey sandwich and call someone a fag or go kill themselves without worrying their gonna go down a bottle of bleach or turn their belt into a makeshift noose. But, we're at that point in society unfortunately and this story really struck a chord with me. Maybe because I played sports, maybe because I hate pussies, I can't be sure why. Sure, the team lost by 91 points, but at what point do we teach a kid the value of competition.... the value of learning to lose. Hell, my football team sucked the world's fattest cock. We didn't win a game my junior year, but nothing even came close to approaching a 91 point ass beating. But I understand why this team gets shat on if their whole team is comprised of kids whose parents are the type to file a bullying report for a loss. Practice running some routes, or tackling, or anything. Was this a blind school? I didn't even check. I hope it was.

Just wtf is up with bullying recently anyways. It's like the new trendy buzzword that everyone can get pseudo-offended by. There's even commercials for it. I want my future son to kick ass if he's bullied, not go tell a teacher. I remember my high school had a "no-tolerance" violence policy, and many other schools do too. So even if you defend yourself, you get suspended. Fuck these pussy rules. I got bullied one time and I put the kid in a submission leg lock, ripped his leg from his body, gnawed on it, used his blood as sauce, then took a dump on him before merrily strolling my way to the principal's office to get my suspension notice. Except when I got there she blew me first. The world needs more people like me.

It's even going on now with GROWN MEN. The pussyitis disease has spread to our adult males too. And not even the flamboyant fashionista limp-wristed ones. I am talking this garbage that's going on with the Dolphins where an offensive lineman got kicked off the team for 'bullying' a 300+ pound professional athlete. Then today, I flip on ESPN as usual and some random player for Rutgers is saying he left the team because the coach was too mean. I guess he wanted the following pregame speech before the big game: "Ok guys, lets go out there and play hard today. And if we don't win, at least you did your best! Even if we get blown out by 50, we can still go get crazy vanilla ice cream afterwards! Extra large waffle cones for everyone!!!" Excuse me while I slowly remove this pistol from between my teeth but what the hell is going on here?

For a bonus here's another sweet song from a band I am going to check out more.

Paedantic Basterd

I don't at all concur with your life philosophy, but it's really good to see you writing. Never thought I'd see the day!

Isbjørn

THERE'S what's up with the emo journal! Luckily you're still exploring emo, since I'm too (sort of) and haven't come much futher than The Get Up Kids myself...

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Trollheart

As I believe the kids say these days, this is going to be epic! Lookin' forward to it!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

Don't get me wrong, the idea that society is finally heading toward less violence and more understanding is great, but this whole Facebook, anti-bullying trend is annoying. It all seems to be more about self-righteous condemnation and whining than about giving any honest-to-god solutions. How do we deal with bullying? By stopping it apparently. Never mind that "bullying" and the mentality behind it is an intrinsic part of not just child but adult life as well. Apparently we don't need to deal with any other part of the equation that contributes to it, or the effects, or anything else, just the noogies.

Back when I was in school I had a counselor tell a group of kids that if they're being bullied that they should, among other ****turd advice, laugh with them when they're laughing at you. What's wrong with you? If I laughed with the guy who put me in a headlock I'd be considered either a ***got or a retard. Most likely both. What's the point of making sure your kid isn't being bullied if he becomes a social pariah who ends up hanging by his bed sheets because he can't deal with getting ****ed with without running off and crying to the school authorities? What's gonna happen when he's an adult and he can't deal with personal problems without seeking out someone else to intercede on his behalf? **** that. If your kid is being bullied, tell him to give the other kid a black eye. Sure his douchebag teachers might suspend him, but in the long run he'll be better off since he'll actually have the self-confidence to deal with his own problems.

And another thing, this whole "zero-tolerance" policy in schools is BS. They're not concerned with your child. The giant, bloated bureaucracy that runs the schools is just worried about accountability. If they say that they won't tolerate any violence whatsoever from any of the involved parties then they can't be sued by some whiny parent. The fact that the kids involved now have to deal with the fallout is apparently secondary to some ******* pencil pusher keeping his ****ty job.

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butthead aka 216

The bolded part is hitting the nail on the head. It's the reason I loathe feminist tards. Because their agendas are really about self-righteous soapboxing, whining, and not offering any actual solutions. It's the same with bullying. People love feeling like victims.

I wish when I was in school, I had the mindset I have now and could see the bigger picture. I was never bullied, but there was a couple times where I wanted to beat the snot out of some kid. I didn't, because the threat of being suspended, which really only mattered to me because of being suspended from the sports teams. Looking back, I would gladly trade a 3 day suspension for a Mike Tyson uppercut to a few certain douchers.

Less violence, more understanding = good. But it shouldn't mean pacifism. Sometimes violence IS the answer is my train of thought. Not always as a first resort, but if some guy wants to come up and knock the books out of a kids hands, that kid should haul off and try to take his chin off of his face with a right hook. Most times in a fight, the more intense man wins, not the biggest. If you're adrenaline is through the roof and you catch a bigger guy off guard, you have a good shot.



So another band I've been starting to explore more is Texas is the Reason.



Basically I was in Plug and we were talking about shows we had seen, and I remembered going to Warped Tour in 2007 and seeing New Found Glory play at one of the two main stages. And I remembered some gigantic 35 year old trying to beat up my buddy for bumping into his girlfriend. In hindsight, they were way too old to be front row at a New Found Glory set. But then again, most of the people attending are likely serving fries right now, and I saw attempted mosh pits at Angels and Airwaves and Dashboard Confessional shows before... So my expectations of people at these shows should be considerably lower.

So anyways, I decide to throw on some New Found Glory and as usual, I am googling stuff about the band while listening to a playlist. I see Texas is the Reason mentioned on a message board saying that NFG sounds a lot like them. So I check them out:



I heard this song first and thought it ruled. Basically they were also huge players in the '90s emo scene like The Get Up Kids were. I am looking forward to hearing more and next week sitting down and listening to an entire album to get a more full view of the band.

djchameleon

Well that shit doesn't fly anymore old timer. Bullying today isn't the same as it was back in your day. Bullying has amplified to a whole new level with the internet and you can't even escape it when you go home. You still receive harrassing messages all over social networks that you are apart of and get threatening phone calls saying "I'm going to kill you and die in a fire" It is more than just a little wedgie. They go on a more aggressive attack nowadays that is more psychological than physical.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

butthead aka 216

Also, here's a list of emoish bands that I have listened to that I can't get into. I haven't listened to much by any of them, so feel free to try and change my mind by giving me suggestions or posting a youtube video to listen to:

-Mineral
-old Jimmy Eat World
-American Football
-Hey Mercedes
-Cap'n Jazz
-Whirr/Whirl

Key

Welcome to journal-land butthead!

butthead aka 216

Trollheart and Ki, thanks. Glad to be here in journal land.

One of the first emo bands I listened to was The Movielife. At the time, I was a pussy and dealing with a rough break-up in the early years of my college education. So I was sulking in my dorm room, using some Napster rip-off that my college endorsed and let us download from, when I stumbled upon The Movielife. I remember it was one of the 'recently downloaded' albums on the server or whatever, so I queued it to download without really knowing much about the band.

Turns out, the first song I heard from them was able to capture my pussy feelings pretty much perfectly. Here was the song:



My 19 year old self was like "Hey, hopefully in a few weeks I can feel this way" while downing 40 ounce hurricanes and stumbling through the dorm trying to avoid my RA. Basically the song is about being with someone and having wild, rough sex, then breaking up, and making up to be friends... My interpretation anyways. Of course it didn't work out that way. We got back together, had bought an apartment together, got a labrador, eventually had 2 kids in white suburban America, and listened to a lot of Top 40. She cooked and cleaned and I did yardwork and car repairs and we are living happily ever after to this day.

Just kidding, she started fucking a football player and I started pounding the pud of some freshman volleyball player. We eventually met up at Panera bread, then she came to my place 2 weeks later and we had wild sex, then we just let things deteriorate into a lot of bitter feelings and drunken phone calls I don't remember well. Haven't talked in a few years.

By the way, if you are about to tell me that The Movielife is actually pop-punk or whatever, please cram your laptop directly up your ass, jabroni. So moving on, I was listening to The Movielife for a few weeks until I found Alkaline Trio. Back in the day, I would wait until 3AM when the music videos came on MTV and VH1 and watch them all night out of a mixture of insomnia and lack of self discipline. I heard "Time To Waste" and thought it sounds pretty cool.

So I downloaded what I thought was Alkaline Trio's greatest hits CD, called Remains. Turns out, it's actually some weird collection of b-sides, EPs, and international releases. Not that it matters, it still rules. It had the uptempo rhythm I was looking for with a lot of really dark lyrics. Time to Waste, probably their biggest song to date, wasn't a very good predictor for what I would find within their other material. Their older stuff is especially punkish and noticeably less poppy.




I quickly became addicted to their sound and jammed to their first 3 CDs pretty much constantly. Everything after that is kind of hit or miss and much more poppy and less dark. Some of it kinda sucks but their old stuff, especially the Goddamnit and The Alkaline Trio CDs always have a place in my heart. I still relate a lot to the depressive alcohol-fueled lyrics.

Matt Skiba, their lead singer, also has some incredible solo stuff (if you check out his other bands, Heavens and Matt Skiba and The Sekrets, you will want to drown yourself). Maybe I will post some Skiba solo stuff another time but it's worth checking out. Alkaline Trio seems to be a nice bridge between pussy emo stuff and harder bands.