Punk is Dad, Vol. V

Oi.

My best friend, BP, has always been reliable when it comes to informing Kimmel (one of my best friends from high school and college) and I informed on when and where noteworthy bands are passing through our neck of the woods. We've made it a habit to check out certain acts - most notably Rancid and The Bouncing Souls - whenever they pass through Chicago, Detroit, or Grand Rapids.  I'm glad he stays on top of this sorta thing 'cause I sure as hell don't.

During the winter, BP discovered that Social Distortion - a pioneering punk band that came out in the early '80s but really hit their stride as a punk-ish rock band in the '90s - was coming to Grand Rapids on July 5th. My 27th Birthday. We all agreed that, while Social D isn't one of our all-time favorites by any means, they're still awesome and for a mere $50 we could check out one of the most essential bands of the genre (and cross that off the ol' Bucket List.) Kind of a no-brainer.

They had asked me in the weeks leading up to this if there was anything in particular that I wanted to do beforehand, considering it was my birthday and everything. I only had two stipulations: 1.) I wanted to shop at a record store on my birthday, because that's become a tradition of mine over the course of the last five or six years, and 2.) I wanted to have dinner at one of Grand Rapids' big breweries (they have a ton of good ones down there.) Both of these were obviously easy to do (and well-received.)

I drove down to BP's Rockford in the early afternoon, and after catching up with him and his fam for a bit, we saddled up and headed downtown to rendezvous with Kimme at the record store for some pre-dinner shopping. 

I'll cut out the intro talk and just let the following pics and video do the talking - enjoy. . .

Kimmel was supposed to meet us at BP's, but - surprise, surprise - he was running late. This shouldn't come as a shocker to anyone, honestly - the dude was late to his own wedding. He had taken his family, who were in town with him visiting extended family at some local campground not too far away, and they wanted to take their two, young boys to some local aquarium to kill some time. This took longer than originally expected, but he was at least able to meet us at the record store at the agreed-upon time. Progress, folks.

Kimmel walks his son, Hank, back to the car (he had taken him around the side of some building to piss in an alleyway - seriously - because the kid couldn't hold it any longer.) After he got his son strapped back into a car seat - and BP and I had said hi to Kat and the boys - they took off and we headed into Vertigo Records, probably the nicest record store in Grand Rapids.

They have an insane amount of good music here. New stuff, rare stuff, stuff from genres you don't usually see well-represented elsewhere (punk, metal, alternative, indie, etc.) Their vintage prices aren't the greatest, as they don't have a lot of the old classic rock stuff cluttering the shelves like they do at, say, Radio Wasteland back home, but it's a refreshing change of pace.

Kimmel lives in downtown Chicago, so he pays out the ass for a two-bedroom apartment and, consequently, doesn't have a lot of shelf space for vinyl (he says he limits his collection to 25 albums or so), so he didn't buy anything. BP bought three or four, though - his collection is probably in the 150 album range.

I, personally, have about 860 albums in my collection at present, but have room for more if I purge here and there. These four I picked up for about $90, which was a steal considering three of the four ended up being limited editions on colored vinyl, and only one of them was used. The Chisel and The Dictators albums were both wants I've wanted for awhile, but Amazon's and Discog's prices were slightly more than what I ended up picking them up for in the store (and they were both colored, limited pressings, which was a bonus.) The Kinks album is a Holy Grail find for Yours Truly - it's my favorite album by them and has been out of print for years. The Bastards one is nostalgic, because I saw these guys (Lars if the guitarist from Rancid, this is his side-band) back when they first toured on this album, back in 2001. . . when I met the entire band afterwards and had a sticker autographed by all of them. That, and Lars personally sold me a Bastards Zippo lighter for a mere $14 because that was all I had on me at the time (though that was my gas money back to WMU at the time, but still.) All in all, one of the best single-day hauls of my entire life.

Heading out of the shop, having secured our treasures for the afternoon.

Seriously check this place out if you ever find yourself in downtown Grand Rapids.

Next up on our agenda was dinner (though it was still kinda early, only like 4pm) - Founder's Brewing. We found an awesome parking spot directly across a side street from the main entrance to the brewery - one of those deals where we pulled into someone's spot just as they were leaving, which is the EXACT same thing that happened to us at the record store (last time BP and I went to Vertigo Records, we had to walk two blocks to get there after parking.)

Man on a Mission.

This is one of the top three breweries in Michigan (the other two being Bell's and Short's.)

I haven't eaten at this place since way back in 2015 when my brother Chris and I came to do a brewery tour of Grand Rapids with my Uncle Larry. Have definitely been looking forward to stopping in here again.

Yup. I'm at the age where you have to pack a pair of readers in your pocket so you can read drink menus and the back of album sleeves. Shut up.

I frickin' love this place.

Waiting for food, enjoying some bad-ass beers.

Founder's hooked me up with a free beer since it was my birthday, which was awesome.

Some chick.

After a couple hours in Founder's, we headed back to the car (conveniently parked nearby, of course.)

These bikes you can rent throughout the city get left like this all the time. Super classy.

They're building some giant amphitheater downtown, right off the highway. No idea how they're going to handle parking for this sum'bitch, there's no available spot nearby for it.

Kimmel wanted to stop off at a pharmacy for some Tums (because he's that old), and while we were putzing around the inside of a local Walgreen's, I spotted these shelves. ''One of these things is not like the other. . . "

This song kept coming up randomly on BP's stereo for some reason, we heard it like three times. And no, he's not a fan of this song. We assumed the Universe was trying to tell us something. . .

Our next, and final, stop of the evening was the venue itself, so BP set off to try and find a parking spot within a couple blocks.

You can imagine how blown away were were, then, when we drove slowly past the venue - GLC Live at 20 Monroe - and spotted an EMPTY PARKING SPACE, right in front of the doors. Like, 100 feet or so. I took a video so you could see how close we were to the front doors, and how far back the line snaked back down the block(s.)

The aforementioned parking spot. We didn't bother getting out to just stand in line with all those dirty peasants, seeing how we could just sit in the comfort of his car and have an eye on things from there. We waited until the line went inside before finally getting out. Like civilized gentlemen.

We didn't have seats for this show, it was a small-ish venue that could fit 500 or so standing attendees (though there was far less inside than that, it was definitely sparse.) Breezing through security, we made our way in, hit the bathrooms to get that out of the way, grabbed some beers (Kimmel bought mine since it was my birthday and everything), and took up our spots on the floor.

The opening band was comically bad. Not incompetent, but the singer was far too dramatic for being a no-name band (and they weren't a punk band at all, which was a let down.)

We couldn't talk to each other due to the volume, so we'd text back and forth on occasion if we had something to say. BP's comment on the band is 100% spot-on if you've ever seen a movie like that before.

After a brief half-hour tear-down between the opener and the main event, Social Distortion took the stage at last. . .

Some of these pics are ours, but some - like this one here, I screenshot off Instagram (so, you know, I'm giving credit where credit's due and all that crap - please don't sue me.)

Mike Ness, the legend himself (at left.) Dude looks pretty good for being 60 or however old he is.

Punk is Dad.

(This was our vantage tonight - not too bad at all, we were somewhat close and only slightly off to the side. . . close to the bar.)

They saved a lot of their best-known songs for the encore, which was a weird choice, but I guess that guaranteed folks stayed throughout the entire show.

This was the 'official' set list, but they played three or four additional ones spread out throughout their set.

I think this guitarist is a founding member, too (the other guys looked younger, though.)

Reach for the Sky

We stayed into the encore, until they only had about one or two songs to go, then left for the car in order to beat the mad rush once the show wrapped up.

We BARELY made it out of downtown Grand Rapids, even with our great parking spot and leaving early. The sidewalks were packed with crowds, even running into the streets and stopping traffic. Grand Rapids' annual firework display was happening downtown, right over the river, so there were thousands of people milling about. BP had to aggressively inch his car out between crowds in order to turn onto a side street and dash onto US-131.

Not the best fireworks picture, but I was taking this from a moving vehicle and BP dodged in and out of traffic. Folks were actually stopped in the right lane of 131, and hundreds of people were crowded along the shoulder, watching the fireworks. There were cops everywhere trying to disburse the crowds, but not nearly enough to be effective. After a tense mile or two, we were able to resume normal highway speeds as we closed the last ten miles before BP's stomping ground of Rockford. I've never seen anything like that in my entire life.

We stopped at a liquor store to pick up a few beers, then headed down into BP's basement to have a couple drinks and watch a few episodes of The Simpsons. After a high-energy evening like we had just had, no one was feeling sleepy quite yet.

Eventually, BP and I drove Kimmel over to his hotel - where him and his family were staying - about a mile or two away from BP's. We nabbed one, final selfie before heading home for the night, another mid-40's Punk Rock Adventure successfully executed. See ya in the Pit, folks. . .

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXII

Hey there. Let's jump into this one and, well, just see what we can wrap our heads around . .

Album Title:  A Christmas to Remember

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Right off the bat, I should let you guys know that this was one of the more difficult albums I've had to review for the Holidays. I first spotted it at Radio Wasteland in the dusty-as-all-hell Dollar Bin, and right away I thought this was going to be a total crap-fest, considering:

No, that's not The Band - it's The Christmas Boogie Band. Huge difference.

1.)  I didn't recognize a single artist on the track listing on the back of the sleeve, which is rarely a good sign. I mean, how hard is it really to book a C- or D-List artist for a Holiday record? How many absolute train wrecks have we seen over the years featuring abysmal 'talent' in their track listings? These dudes are always clamoring for spots on Christmas compilations like this, that's pretty much all they had once their mainstream careers began to dry up. 

2.)  The cover art is. . . something. You have Santa Claus, flying across a wintery landscape, like he's been known to do - directly in front of the moon like he's in E.T. or some shit. Down below on the ground is a herd of wild horses, watching on in what I can only assume is awe at the passing spectacle. Horses are skittish animals, guys, so this probably freaked them right the f*** out. Seeing a dude repeatedly cracking a whip across the backs of their quadruped cousins (are horses and reindeer distantly related?) as THEY FLY ACROSS THE SKY, IN CLEAR DEFIANCE OF GOD'S WILL.

Clearly whoever whipped this together was high as a damn kite.

But I digress. Let's get back to the point of this whole entry here, folks - let's analyze what this thing actually sounds like. 

Dropping the needle on Side A, we're met with some upbeat Tijuana-ish, South-of-the-Border jazz. As you all well know by now, this is most definitely my jam. I sat up, took notice, and was like, 'Oh damn, we might have a surprise keeper on our hands here!'

Remember this one, gang? Colored vinyl pressing of Christmas Disco for $12?

Then, right on its heels, came something different - a full-blown, Salsoul Orchestra-ish rendition of 'Jingle Bells.' Jarring, sure, considering it was preceded by a completely different sound, but not horrible: both were upbeat, fun instrumentals that one could definitely be entertained by, and they were done well (mixing, arrangement, performance - no complaints.) 

The next track also had some disco elements to it, but featured a male singer delivering some straight-up yacht rock vocals over the funkiness. 2015 Brian would not have cared for this in the slightest, but 2024 Brian, folks, is all here for the Yacht Rock.

I was hoping the trend would continue as Side A progressed, but the ol' bucket of ice water was dashed in my face pretty fast when the next track kicked off. A polka number. Heavy on the organ, no accordion to be found, so that it comes across more as a carnival ride soundtrack than an actual Polish take on Christmas. Definitely cringy, but all of these songs clock in under the 2-minute mark, so I was willing to take a point off and continue on my merry way. Fortunately, the next song is a return to Yacht Rock/Disco territory, which, while not my favorite sort of yuletide genre in the slightest, was at least following a discernible trend.

Magnum P.I. and Slenderman enjoy a sleigh ride on a magical winter's night. 

The last track on Side A, while not horrible, was a country/western instrumental done all on a quartet of guitars. And though out of place here (though the 'place,' by this point in time, is starting to get hard to keep track of), it was a decent little track. No, where everything falls of the rails in major fashion is upon flipping the record over on to Side B. . .

It's a piano-led orchestral number. Slow, serene, and it doesn't sound anything like Christmas music. It's like they pressed two different mini-albums onto one frickin' record. No more upbeat, fun music. No more Tijuana jazz, no more disco, no more yacht rock. Now it's time for introspection.

I had a bad feeling that this album was themed (I've reviewed albums in the past that were released like this), with one side the 'upbeat' Christmas music - the fun carols, etc. - and the other side the 'serious' Christmas music (you know, the 'Reason for the Season' and all that crap.)  

I hate it when albums do this.

Well, they definitely weren't kidding with the 'all the different ways you feel' crap.

My fears were well-founded, as it turns out. The next couple tracks were all filled with the usual, boring church bullshit: lots of organ, lots of hand bells, chimes, harpsichords, harmonicas (courtesy of a group called The Harmonicats - seriously, I guess that's a thing that exists), and - of course - swelling string sections. It was bad enough just as mere instrumental tracks, but by the third or fourth song in, they start rolling out the usual, overly-brash male vocals - because belting out religious carols makes it hit harder, I guess - and the standard, old-lady-warbling that you generally hear at a church service you're dragged to during the Holiday Season.

This whole album sounds like some mid-level record company executive asked his sound engineers what masters were lying around the label's studio that hadn't been previously released on prior Holiday compilations. The poor sound dudes, sighing deeply and shaking their heads, came out with a dusty cardboard box filled with a 13 reels of various songs (from all kinds of frickin' genres.) They informed this douchey superior of theirs that these reels were all that was left, but they were from various sessions over the years and there wasn't any continuity to speak of.

Then the executive, in his infinite wisdom, said 'screw it' and told them to mix them all up and have the shit pressed for release.

If it were possible to rate each side separately, I'd probably rate Side A a 6.5 (not that we condone the '0.5' system around here) and Side B a 4. But, because we are a society with f***ing rules, I can't do that, and as such, will be slapping one, big rating on the entire album as a whole.  And I'm not happy about it. At all.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh  (Almost good, but damn - this album does to 'compilations' what Michael Bay did to Transformers. It's so random that I want to prescribe it ADHD meds and get it in to therapy.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

Rockford, in the Rain

Welcome back, readers.

So, weeks ago, Kris and I had planned on an overnight trip down to Rockford to hang out with my best friend, Black Paul, and his wife, Sam, and their daughter, Delia. Kris was set upon seeing some kinda lantern thingy (think Tangled, I guess) at the local zoo down there, but unfortunately with Alayna's end of the school year plans, we weren't able to head down there until Saturday (today.) At that point, the lantern event was over and done with, so she reluctantly relented on pushing for it.

Rockford Brewing - one of those places I'm always cool with visiting here. 

BP suggested going to the beach at Muskegon instead, making a day trip out of it, which we were totally on board with. Unfortunately, the weather ended up being downright crappy this weekend - it rained almost non-stop Saturday and Sunday, and so the beach idea, too, was shelved. We still planned on going downstate to hang out with them - they always come up to visit us, for our Halloween parties, etc. so it was only fair we return the favor - and basically resigned ourselves to just going along with the flow.

I had some roasted chicken falafel wrap thing that was super good. . .

Upon arrival, around 1pm, everyone was hungry and we ended up over at Rockford Brewing for some lunch, some beers, and some strategizing for how the rest of the day would pan out. I'll cut this short and just let the pics and video do the talking folks, you know the drill around these parts.

Enjoy. . .

So at lunch we decided that Kris and Sam would take Abby and Delia (Alayna stayed behind in Midland because her friends' annual, end-of-school-year party had been switched to Saturday, after all that re-planning on our part) shopping around downtown Rockford to hit up some local shops and boutiques. This freed up The Knights of Pokemon to head into downtown Grand Rapids to check out the area's greatest vinyl record store (which I was obviously totally cool with.)

Vertigo Music. BP's talked about this place before, and the last couple times we've hit up record stores in Rockford they've been the smaller, shittier ones. This one had a ridiculous selection to choose from, and I could have spent hours in there.

There's a sweet spot when it comes to buy records in a store, though. See, while this place had a ridiculous amount of new vinyl on hand, and they were below the Discogs asking price, they seemed to hover around what you could get them for on, say, Amazon. I have sooo many records these days that I'm only hunting down a few, elusive albums for my collection, so I can't just waltz into a place and come out with an armload of new records without purging once I get home. I couldn't find any of the albums I wanted off my to-buy list among the 'new' section, so I went into the 'used' vinyl. Their prices for used vinyl was beyond stupid - only a couple bucks cheaper than the new versions, which is absolutely absurd. I ended up walking out of their with one, new album (from Calexico), so it wasn't a total wash, but still - kind of a let down.

While BP (who ended up walking out with four albums) and I were shopping for vinyl, Kris and Abby and the DeBoers bounced around different shops, checking stuff out. At some point, I guess, there was some kinda loom or something? I'm not sure where this is, or what that's doing there, or anything - I just pulled pics off Kris' phone, folks.

After an hour or so, BP left Vertigo Music. I'd definitely return  to this one, but my expectations would be adjusted for sure.

Heading back to the car, in the rain.

We met Kris and the others back at the DeBoer residence, where BP and I re-sleeved his new acquisitions and tested the out on his turntable. His collection is coming along, but he's not looking to expand past the cabinet he has here, so he's more or less in the same situation as I am (just on a much smaller scale, obviously.)

After an hour or so back at their house, we decided to head back into downtown Rockford to do something else.

BP has told me before - multiple times - about this retro, arcade spot in Rockford that he and Delia frequent from time to time, and suggested we hit it up (knowing my affection for old videogames from my childhood.)

So this joint, Pinball Land, is a pay-by-the-hour venue, which is honestly way better than nickle-and-diming you to pay per machine (I wish Brinstar in Midland was more like this, honestly.) 

We all paid $7 per person for an hour's worth of unlimited game time, which - if you do the math - is cheaper than what you'd pay if you were paying 25 or 50 cents per play anyway (the fancier games sometimes charge $1 per play, too.)

Kris and Abby battle it out in Street Fighter II

Whooped Abby's ass in this head-to-head driving simulator (which, by the way, would have been one of those $1-per-play games back in the day, 100%.)

I was excited to come across this nefarious relic from my Showbiz Pizza Place days. Good to see it's still nearly IMPOSSIBLE to play as ever (I couldn't advance past the first five seconds of the game, still can't play it for shit.) You should Youtube this bullshit and see for yourself how emotionally scarring this game is.

They have a couple different rooms in this joint, filled with retro arcade games, pinball games, and larger more-immersive setups (like the head-to-head racing games Abby and I were playing earlier.)

Sam and Kris, playing some pinball.

Abby and Delia race each other on motorcycles. . .

Yes, they even have a game based on cornhole (or, 'bags' as they call it. . . for whatever stupid reason.)

This games was definitely harder than the real thing, and I'm not even all that great at that.

Kris tries out X-Men (the options for which X-Man you got to be were super lame, though - no Gambit?!)

Sam and Abby try out some Dance Revolution game thing.

I had Abby play me in one of the greatest retro arcade games of all time, NBA Jam. I'm not even a sports guy (as you know), but everyone needs to respect a classic.

After the arcade, Kris, Sam and the girls headed back to the DeBoer residence while BP and I ran out to pick up a couple pizzas (neither of us were that hungry, but womenfolk were starting to get there.)  Along the way, we snapped a pic to send to Kimmel - the third piece of our Triforce - who unfortunately couldn't be there to hang out with us

Back the house, as folks began to dig into pizza, we put on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ('cause it's BP and I, for Christ's sake), and BP and I cracked a couple beers. I had brought along my travel cooler filled with a couple hand-selected craft beers for this evening, the first of which being this one. It was. . . okay. Kinda pissed I spent money on it, actually.

BP used this time to continue working on one of his 'Treat Yo'Self' purchases from the last couple months - a Lego Rivendell (from Lord of the Rings) set, which consists of thousands of pieces and multiple bags of pieces. The price tag of this thing rivals some of my nicer swords, folks.

Abby and her damn selfies. . . she's as bad as her mom.

Nothing to see here, folks - just adult men in their 40's playing with Lego. . .

This set came with a dozen or so figures from the movie (the first installment of the trilogy, obviously) including these three - Sam, Frodo, and old-ass Bilbo.

This was a pretty run-of-the-mill pilsner - similar to a Bud Lite - but for $4 for a four pack of 16oz tall boys, and considering the cool can design, it was kinda hard to pass it up.

We went at this for a couple hours, things got dicey from time to time. I can't imagine these more deluxe sets are geared towards children, we were having a hell of a time.

About 20% done at this point, and we never came close to finishing the set while we were down there - we stopped shortly after this roof was accomplished. Around 11pm, the womenfolk all went to bed, with BP and I following suit about an hour or two later. In the morning, after a quick breakfast and coffee, we said our farewells to the DeBoers and headed back up north for home, a fun lil' day trip downstate in the books.

- Brian