You’re Gonna Know Me For The Rest Of Your Life

Kudu “Physical World” – Ah, it’s too bad Missy Elliott just put out a record with speakeasy imagery on the cover – that concept would’ve been more appropriate for a hypothetical single for this song. (Maybe I’m being too literal, though.) The Kudu album yields consistently strong results in spite (or because) of their restless style hopping, but their singer never seems quite as comfortable and in full command of her voice and persona as on this cabaret/jazz vocal/r&b/electronic mut. (Click here to visit the official Kudu site.)

While I was out yesterday, I saw a teenager wearing what I believe might be the saddest rock band t-shirt that I’ve ever seen. Here’s the front of it:

Now, I’m not trying to rag on Everclear here. I don’t hate them (in fact, I quite like at least six or seven of their songs), and the near total lack of coolness of that band really isn’t that much of a factor in why I find this shirt so sad and desperate. (If that was the case, I’d surely be mocking a Candlebox or Seven Mary Three t-shirt instead.) The “disco still sucks” thing is the most obvious problem here – judging by the tour dates on the back of the shirt, this was made in 2000, placing it about 20 years after the point when the whole “disco sucks” thing was relevant. It just seems like a pitiful last gasp of a lifelong rockist who is totally out of it, hung up on ridiculous old grudges, and oblivious to the fact that the record the shirt is ostensibly promoting actually sorta flirts with disco-ish pop on a few tracks. But on the other hand, Everclear may be doing the public at large a favor by helpfully marking out clueless rockist (potentially homophobic/racist/sexist) turbodouches in a crowd, so that we can all avoid their company.

And then there’s the sad happy face. Is there any better way to force the impression that you’re a cut-rate Walmart version of Nirvana than by putting a half-assed generic variation of their iconic, highly ubiquitous stoned happy face logo on your band’s t-shirt?

The back of the t-shirt is arguably more depressing than the front, with a long Mother 13-esque tour itinerary comprised entirely of radio festivals. I did not infer that these were radio festivals just from a quick glance, mind you. It says that it’s a radio festival tour, right there in big bold letters. Now I guess it’s admirable in a way that Everclear is unashamed and unpretentious about sucking up to corporate radio on a full-time basis (after all, it is/was their bread and butter), but um, maybe they should at least be a little more discreet about it! There’s really only two ways of reading that itinerary – 1) Everclear is a band desperate to stay in the good graces of Clearchannel et al and will do anything to keep their music in rotation 2) Everclear is a band so beaten down by the commercial process that they just don’t care at all what anyone thinks of them. It’s a little bit of both, I’m sure, but I can’t help but suspect that it was born mainly out of resignation.