Things you aren't good enough to say

"You know, they say we sold our souls, but to who? The devil? Last I checked, the Lord was the only one giving out record contracts these days"

-Valient Himself

I have noticed an unsettling trend in the last few years that by no means arose de novo from what I can only assume is the mind of the same autistic kid responsible for ‘St. Elsewhere’, but it seems to have made itself much more ubiquitous lately. I’m talking of course about the chimera effect of defunct popular bands, the mash-up that inevitably occurs when the less talented halfof one split band gangs up with the less motivated half of another and churns out this:

Velvet Revolver: Irrelevant people
making stupid redundant crap

The reason I comment on it now is that we are facing a unique time in this horrible tradition’s history. With the reinvigoration of the L.A. sex rock that made the Sunset Strip and the Roxy places of note, not to mention drove truckloads of money directly to the doorsteps of idiots who had an otherwise bright future of figuring out a more efficient way to make a birth control system from the catalytic converter they snaked from work, the contemporary bands that claim Guns n Roses and Motley Crue as influences are in the same ecological niche as the bands formed from their idols’ members. Avenged Sevenfold must now compete for the same dollars and vaginas as Velvet Revolver.

As a thesis statement, or more accurately a mantra, I follow this last example with a simple sentence; Fuck Velvet Revolver. This band is the misguided sexual will of a 14 year old violently colliding with a geriatric ability to get an erection. If you combined all the campy, unsuccessful elements of both GnR and Stone Temple Pilots, shoveled enough coal to get the rock engine to just above ‘Aerosmith Asteroid Song’, then convinced every teenager without back pockets on their jeans that their new favorite band had just materialized from the dimension of heroine scabs, you’d be getting close to the level of god-fucking-awful that this band achieves.

I will leave you now with a link to their new assuredly hit single ‘She Builds Quick Machines’, but not before relaying to you what one special young person has to say about these arbiters of rock. While viewing the video, please try not to focus on the fact that Slash most likely provided wardrobe for the entire cast from his own closet or the startling image of one band member who looks like Skeletor dressing up as the cowboy from the Village People for Halloween. Instead keep in mind this quote from a ‘dracorona’ thoughtfully scribed in the hallowed halls on t3h internetz, “thanks god for VR. it´s the best band in the world. in this moment the music is bore and bad, but velvet is here to save us. they are the best!!!” I think that sums up my case far more eloquently than this poor wordsmith ever could.

The promised rocking

Now far be it from me to undermine the staunch edifice of unadulterated hatred for everything that scene legends are required by law to tote at all times, but I consider the young man who penned this comic (and many others) a slice above some. His name is Mitch Clem and you should visit his website mitchclem.com if only to learn how to move to Texas with no money and only the virtue of your cynicism and love of Henry Rollins (I mean did you see Bad Boys II for fuck's sake?) to pull you through.