"The Paul Green School of Rock All Stars featuring Gibby Haynes performing the music of The Butthole Surfers". That's the description of the show at Highline Ballroom in NYC Sunday night. Children of the Unicorn is opening that show. Comedian Dave Hill plays in the band Children of the Unicorn, and Dave Hill created the below video to help you not "spend another Valentine's Day alone in your bathroom crying into a sponge".....

Continue reading "Dave Hill's Love Report, Gibby Haynes, Butthole Surfers"

the first in a series where we asked comedians to tell us what was good this year....

Dave Hill is a great man. He's a very busy musician, comedian, actor, writer, and taste-maker. He's got his own show on Mojo called King of Miami as well as a recurring live comedy/variety/chat show in NYC called The Dave Hill Explosion. You can also catch Mr. Hill tearing his audience a new one as guitarsmith for the band Children of the Unicorn. Mr. Hill took time out of his insane schedule to give BV readers his list of the best music to come out of 2007. -Klaus

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It usually takes me a couple years to realize that an album has come out, but here is some of the stuff I managed to discover in a timely fashion this year:

BLACK SABBATH, The Dio Years- No matter what someone might be talking about, if they are able to make reference to “the Dio years” at some point you know it’s got to be pretty magical. In a perfect world, “Heaven and Hell” would just blast repeatedly from loudspeakers everywhere, all the time. Also, people would carry torches.

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT, Release the Stars- Rufus is one of few musicians today that people will still listen to in a hundred years and stuff. Plus, he wears lederhosen on stage, which just makes everything sound better if you ask me.

HIGH ON FIRE, Death Is This Communion- There are so many hot riffs on this record that I feel like whipping my dick out or something.

NEW PORNOGRAPHERS, Challengers- There are so many hot melodies on this record that I feel like whipping my dick out or something.

DOWN, Over the Under- This is not the best album by this band. Still, I think it’s important to support evil (and heavy riffs played by men with beards while wearing black sleeveless T-shirts) in all its forms, so I’m standing behind this one.

Continued below....

Continue reading "Best of 2007 by Dave Hill"

also keep reading for Moby, comedian Dave Hill & Hal Sparks

Tragedy @ Highline Ballroom, NY - Sept 2, 2007 (CRED)

Luckily, this isn't really about metal, it's about novelty metal. Sunday night, the Highline Ballroom brought together not one, not two, not three, but four of our area's finest examples of metal schtick. I only saw one of them, actually. I missed Boyz Nite (known for their "Die Hard" song), Queen Diamond (teenage girl King Diamond tribute) and Beatallica (you can figure it out). I came specifically to see Tragedy, the Number One All-Metal Beegees Tribute Band in the Tri-State Area. And more specifically, I came because I'm friends with the bassist. [Soundbites]

But more about Tragedy later. First let's talk about Ween...

Ween

Ween are set to release their next album La Cucaracha on October 23, 2007 on Rounder Records. Wait...Rounder Records? What do you have to say about that Dean Ween?

The guy from Rounder drove down to New Hope from Massachusetts and took us to lunch. We've been on a lot of labels the past 23 years and had a lot of lunches and we've heard a lot of "pitches". After making small talk for the first 20 minutes I finally felt like I should ask him something, anything-- since he drove all the way down here. The only thing I could come up with was "are there any other bands on Rounder comparable to Ween? I mean when I think of Rounder Records I think of all those Thorogood records and mostly folk type stuff." He said "no, not really." We all started laughing and the decision was made in our minds right there that this was where we needed to be. Later that night we watched the Red Sox game at our studio and then he drove back to Boston t he next day. That's the whole story, and now Ween is on Rounder. Anyway, it's not my job to critique Ween and measure one of our records against another, but I will say that we are super happy with La Cucaracha, we consider it to be a party record, unlike our last record which was more of a Jonestown type party vibe.

Good story, but there's more. Let it be revealed right here and now that "the guy from Rounder" is none other than Izzy Stradlin (aka Rounder A&R guy Dave Godowsky) from the recently disbanded Guns N Roses tribute band Mr. Brownstone...

"no, not really." (Izzy, Slash & Axl @ Bowery Ballroom)

More like NO, NOT REALLY BROKEN UP. Tickets are now on sale for a Mr. Brownstone reunion show at Bowery Ballroom on November 10th (they were broken up for a whole year and four months). They're also playing the Paradise in Boston on December 15th, and tickets are about to go on sale for that one too.

And speaking of metal reunions, Satanicide (who share a member with Mr. Brownstone) is also back! Possibly broken up for an even less amount of time, or maybe more - who can keep track....

On the heels of their sold-out Fillmore at Irving Plaza performance in August, SATANiCiDE will reunite for a one last show (at Bowery Ballroom this Friday September 7th). Making the 17 mile trek from Jer-Z with SATANiCiDE will also be Moby, and comedian Hal Sparks of Showtime's, "Queer as Folk". Other special guests include Suicide Girls, and SATANiDANCER, (and girlfriend of SATANiCiDE's Aleister Cradley) Peg Ramon-Stamos.

"How envious we are of you, all our fans", says SATANiCiDE lead singer Devlin Mayhem. "Unlike you, we will not be able to see our own show. We will be too busy rokking to witness the greatest spectacle of rokk this side of the Holland Tunnel".

Sharing the stage will be the recently Warped-toured THE NOTORIOUS MSG. Blasting out of the streets of Chinatown, THE NOTORIOUS MSG have arrived with a vengeance. Serving up deep-fried beats straight from the Chinese ghetto, they will not stop until they achieve complete world domination.

That's right, Moby (musical star of the new videogame Bioshock) will be there (again). Also (though not mentioned above) - comedian Dave Hill (a musician himself in a band that also shares a member with Satanicide) is also involved in this show in some way. Tickets are on sale.

But wait - what about TRAGEDY? Well, besides sharing a member (Phil) with Satanicide and Dave Hill's band Children of the Unicorn, not to mention Hair Suppply, Tragedy will in fact be opening at all three reunion shows - first for Satanicide at Bowery, and then at both of the Mr. Brownstone gigs.

BONUS POINTS: Now see if you can match this all up with the related post from over 2 years ago. Rock.

What's the best comedy show you saw recently?

The next few days offer no shortage of comedy in NYC. Highlights of the week include:

Live at Joe's Pub 6/22/07, ROFL! hosted by Slovin & Allen and Reggie Watts, presented by The Onion and Paper Thin Walls. What is ROFL?

• ROFL is the very best of the internet, lovingly hand-picked by eight of America’s most-respected blogger types for maximum freshness and optimum awesomeness.
• ROFL is high art, low humor, YouTube video, Myspace weirdness, flash animation, web memes, conceptual puzzles, original film and non-sequiturs galore.
• ROFL is a gong show for the new millennium.
• ROFL is twelve bucks to get out of the house and meet people who are even more web-obsessed than you are!

The list of participants is magnificent and features Josh Fruhlinger of Comics Curmudgeon and Wonkette, Cintra Wilson of Salon and Dregublog, Michelle Collins of You Can't Make It Up and VH1's Best Week Ever, Andrew Baron, co-creator and producer of Rocketboom, Tony Carnevale of Channel 102, Marisa Olson, artist / editor / curator of Rhizome.org and, Nasty Nets, Stu VanAirsdale of The Reeler, Charles Broskoski of Supercentral. For more information and ticketing, GO HERE NOW

More below....

Continue reading "Klaus Kinski's Comedy Canon (06/20/07)"