GLEEK THE F OUT!

Things you should know about me before this post:

a.) I love cheese. All kinds of cheese. My best friend and I used to have a system of rating men by comparing them to a scale of increasingly fine cheeses.

b.) I took voice lessons for like 12 years and my first big role in a musical was "Cheerleader #2" in a grade school production of "Sis! Boom! Bah!" In fact, (and I type this while wearing jeggings and a skull print cotton t from Urban Outfitters so bear with me), I revert to a NKOTB-crazed tween when you put me in proximity to an orchestra pit. I love the drama and the theatrics. Theatre is proof that God or Jebus or whoever wants me to be a total ham and that I am actually not annoying to others.

c.) 9 times out of 10 I judge a song or singer strictly by their vocals. What occasionally makes me the target of sporadic hipster ire is that I will orate my respect for nearly anyone who can sing a solid vocal regardless of their popularity at frat mixers and/or a 12-yr-old girl's slumber party. For this reason I have respect for the Beyonces, Christina Aguileras and Mariah Careys of the world because they have raw natural talent.

d.) ...as such I must confess: I CAN'T STOP WATCHING GLEE! AHHH$%^&*@#$!!!!

I need to accept the truth that nothing about my affinity for show tunes and covers of Top 40 hits by Broadway stars makes me a badass.

Annnnnnnnnd now all my friends whose bands are listed on The Deli officially disowned me. Fanfuckingtastic. Thanks again, FOX. Dicks.....

Werewolf Weekday

Things that are overhyped: Vampires and Vampire Weekend.

Things that deserve to be overhyped: Vampire Weekend.

Facts about the aforementioned:
1. If one more network comes out with their version of a supernatural beings show I am going to go all Sissy Spacek on the entire fucking universe, no joke.

2. True Blood not included.

3. Hipsters are all over Vampire Weekend's 2nd album Contra like blue on Crypts. And I can't say I blame them. It's easy to eff up a sophomore album by overly modifying your recipe (cough cough Flash Delirium cough sneeze hack 'Thanks for the hankie.') I think I like the former because it reminds me of a slightly-more-playful, 40-minute extended version of "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes." with less third world abodiginals....

Like Captain Planet. But better...

SO I get that to understand and appreciate SUPER GROUPS you have to have an inert sense of music snobbery. This is mostly to be able to identify and freak out screaming over what bands the other members of the super group are from.... Sorry, SUPER GROUP....

And to have an inert sense of music snobbery you have to sometimes sit in or around a beanbag chair with holes ripped in it while smoking a hookah and/or think about enrolling in art school and/or already have graduated from art school.

If this doesn't describe you, there might be some basic questions floating in your head:

What is a SUPER GROUP?
CAN I JOIN A SUPER GROUP?

The answers are Shut up. And also, No, unless this is Springsteen and Ringo sitting in a room reading this together, in which case please return my voicemails about the SUPER GROUP...

Arguably the best of this new musical trend is Them Crooked Vultures. Josh Homme (decently awesome but not worth Biebering over), Dave Grohl (totally awesome. I loved you at first Mentos) and John Paul Jones (are you shitting me???).

Open letter to Dave Grohl, if you're the one in charge, please come to Philly and play a show in my apt. Or anywhere near where I live. I make really good spinach artichoke dip you have to like that.... Anyways this song is my favesies. Ugh it's like those crooked ass vultures know that 80% of the time all I wanna do is have my mind erased. Preferably at the Gingerbread Man in Happy Valley or at Calamari's in Erie, PA.

Fancy Footwork.

Things that are funny about Chromeo:

1. They are Canadian
2. They are the self-proclaimed "only successful Arab/Jewish partnership since the dawn of human culture."
3. Their first album was compared to Hall & Oates
4. I like Chromeo and Hall & Oates
5. They were on an episode of Live from Daryl's House once (FWD to 3:50 for the beginning of the actual song)



 THEY WERE ON YO GABBA GABBA! FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!




(Annnnd they totally played that song when I saw them live and it ruled.)

Anyways --'double although' -- I am even less likely to label them hipster shit because they have been sent out on the BEATS list serv that I have with my boys who are very STRUNG, very non-hipster, Penn State frat boys who I helped buy matching Puma sneakers. Here are a few favesies:








Triple extra points for The Eagles cover <3

Pass me the purple drannnkkkkkk

Pass me the damn sizzurp because Weezy Is Freeeee!!!

No seriously give me the sizzurp. Because if it's good enough for Wayne it's good enough for me. I had to drink that shit when I broke my jaw in high school and it's not that bad. And pass some crawdads too while you're at it... Crawdads and Sizzurp. Shorty......

So not gonna lie, the borderline hipster in me HATES autotune, but the 6th grader in me loved the Hot Boy$/Ca$h Money Millionaires/Big Tymers. And still does.

Dead serious. Woooooah-daaaay.

But in further all seriousness, Weezy, like Nicki and Drake, has some of the most creative lines in the rap game right now and his new shit "I am not a human being" (new shit, new shit 0-'10) is straight 80's throwback:



And don't say that Weezy "isn't a rapper and that he just gets drunk and high and talks" because that's actually what I do in my friends' basements. So you just have us confused. It happens.





Now seriously... where is my sizzurp?

"We're a Rock N Roll Band"

Grace Potter had me at "We're a rock and roll band." Truest statement ever.

I'm only labeling GPN as hipster shit bc not enough people know about them. I'm also labeling them as non hipster shit because more people should know about them. They are my favorite band at this exact moment. And I realize and accept the full boldness of this statement. You can fucking notarize it. Grace has the most brilliant vocals I have ever heard and I read about her in Rolling Stone and she is my idol and if I met her I would cry. For real. I like GPN more than anyone other band at this exact space and time in this world and I can't believe I didn't write about them first.

This is gonna be a long post mmk?





If every hair on your arm doesn't stand up from the 2:50 mark until the end of this next song, you're an idiot and I hate you.


3:28.....serial.

I don't think Hipsters like Barbies...

The jury is still out on whether or not hipsters like rap. I think hipsters like Kid Cudi. And obviously Kanye. But they both wear skinny jeans and bright neon hoodies and Cudi plays electric guitar on his new album. Soooo, I mean, if the Chuck Taylor fits...

But I love rap. I'd say I listened exclusively to gangsta rap from age 10 to 15. I'm serious. Rap in the 90's was awesome: 2Pac (Rest in Peace), Notorious (Rest in Peace), MA$E, Jay-Z, Snoop, Bone Thugs, Nas, Puffy, Busta, No Limit, Juvenille, DMX, Mos Def, Wu Tang, Dr. Dre, Eminem...... I wore a Vince Carter UNC jersey with a sports bra and baggy jeans to 6th grade catholic school dances. If you were friends with me in grade school you know you did it too...

I haven't been as excited about a rap album in awhile as I am about Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday. What's exciting about the album is that she has more in her. So it only gets better and it's already on fire. And rap music, like most, is a boy's club. So double that excitement. I haven't been this excited about a female emcee since Lil Kim was running around telling dudes to s her d. If Nicki Minaj has Lil Kim running back to the studio to prove herself you know it's good.

I'm not the sixtieth person to say that Kanye put her in his song ("Monster") and her verse beasted his by a milli.



And possibly HOVA's... said it. too late. BOOM. I haven't seen anything as creative, different and innovative as her in the rap game since Busta was running down that skinny hallway next to an elephant with feathers on his head, covered in glow-in-the-dark body paint and brushing his teeth to the beat.



Oh yes I did just take it there.

Back to Sweden.

Like I said before, liking bands from Sweden puts you on the "I shop at dumpsters and am a part-time barista or bartender" side of the fence. But it is what it is for me when it comes to First Aid Kit.

They are one of my newest discoveries. I saw them recently with my friend Emmy at Johnny Brenda's on a whim. The music is so simple and somehow complexly beautiful.

(For the record: seeing bands at Johnny Brenda's on a weeknight on a whim puts me back on the other side of that line where you shop in dumpsters and are a part time-barista or bartender...)

Anyways, I became quickly obsessed and am now ramming them down everyone's throats on facebook until they like them too. Kinda like I did with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. And Them Croooked Vultures. I do that a lot actually......









I don't even have enough room to post them all... you're on your own!

Alison turned me full-on hipster

If obsessing over Alison Mosshart (of The Kills and The Dead Weather) makes me a hipster than someone please pierce my face right now and give me an effing Keffiyeh and a PBR. Ughhh. Shut. Up. I don’t even care. I will own this one. I seriously love her. Like worship her. I saw her at Lollapalooza in Chicago and it had to be 100 degrees and she wore black skinny jeans, a big white Tee, a scarf and a hat so I went out and bought black skinny jeans, a big white Tee, a scarf and a hat. 

But TIME OUT I also think Helena Bonham Carter mated with the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to create her.... only explanation. That bitch is dynamite.

If you've heard this next one you might still be able to "fall into the GAP" as they say.



But if you know this last one you're totally doomed to near emo-dome. But it's cool because we're in this borderline boat together right? Plus this song is amazing. Point hipsters.

I will only say this once: Gaga Rules

I am sick and tired of hipsters thinking they are not Little Monsters. GAGA is BRILLIANT.

I mean, like, I get it on the "I didn't read and/or go see Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Twilight because they were too mainstream" level. I see your hipster inclinations and I raise you a 'I hate McDonalds too because I care about animal rights.' Don't get it twisted, I completely understand how most pop music is birthed by meticulously selling out to the low-culture real housewives of no one gives a shit in heat. But that's where I see the art in Lady Gaga: She knows that 120 bpm is the fastest way into America's IQ of 42 collective heart and so she injects a message of acceptance, tolerance and social critique that you wouldn't voluntarily ingest. Kind of like roofies.

Hipsters should be embracing Gaga. If ever there was a subculture that put a high premium on being different Lady Gaga should be your effing luminary. Has anyone ever called you pretentious? Oh that's weird....

That's why guff like this gets to me. Michel Gundry I respect you for directing music videos for Radiohead and The White Stripes, who I obsess over but idk... :

During a recent interview with Michel, he said of GaGa:

“I’m not interested. To me it’s like a form of Marilyn Manson. It’s hard for me to talk about it; I’ve seen a couple of videos of hers, and not for very long. I stop watching them each time because I don’t think there’s melodies.

First of all, is your uncle your brother because I'm pretty sure it's "I don't think there are melodies." Second of all, you're being mean. Third of all you're being pretentious. Fourth of all I bet you only shop at Thrift Stores and then brag about it and drink beer out of dumpsters like a HIPSTER! (p.s. I only did that once and in Denver in like a train yard with a bunch of traveling kids and tree punks. No seriously, true story...)

Vocally she is amazing. She plays piano. She writes her own songs. She is walking performance art. She works hard. She actually works! She actually cares about writing music. She actually cares about her fans. She can sort of dance. She's using celebrity to raise awareness about a good liberal cause that she believes in. She refuses to wear pants. I guess my retort to Michael Gundry would be, respectfully, that "No one gives a shit about anyone's music videos anymore anyways because they don't even play them on MTV 14 anymore so slow your roll."

(MTV is a topic for a whole nother day...I get on this huge soap box and also accuse them of having a mole that steals all of me and my friends' funny ideas. It's great. Again...... True. Story.)

So hard core hipster, come on out of your force field of wool flannel and CHECK THIS OUT. Here is some more acousticish Gaga. Judge her by this. Google her interview with Barbara Walters. Read her Rolling Stone interview. And then come talk to me. You don't have to like her radio hits. You don't even have to tell that kid in your indie band you listened to it. I won't say a word.

Born this way. Deal with it.

if you like multiple Swedish bands you are most likely a borderline hipster

Oh Sweden you are so much more than IKEA... (Actually if you go to Sweden's website, Sweden looks pretty badass. There are 400,000 wild mooses and numerous lakes. And Alexander Skarsgard............)

But for reals, Sweden is also home to two of my favorite bands: The Knife and First Aid Kit. Name dropping these bands, especially The Knife, will sometimes outhipster and perplex the most vintagest of hipsters. So I figured I would start here on the borderline hipster playlist. 

I first heard the Knife while hanging with a pierced and tattooed crew in my hometown of Erie, PA. The Knife is sweet. If I had to assign it a genre I would call it 'electronica bizaarro.' They are siblings and they dress up like Shakespearean joker crows and/or crazies but the sound is incredible. Silent Shout (2006), their 3rd album, is what got my attention. It cuts pretty hard. I actually think they are boogie down robots. Or aliens from the future. 

If you have heard this song you may still be on the non-hipster side of the line that is ironically drawn in the sand, but just by a grain (smaller than your nano):

HEARTBEATS 

If you have heard this song you are probably reading this while wearing neon sunglasses or black and purple sunglasses that have studs on them (which I got at the Milcreek Mall, which are awesome...)




Also download: "Na Na Na," "Silent Shout," and "Neverland" for starters.