In all my years of being an ultra-famous, bad-ass music journalist as well head janitor at West Wesley Elementary, I’ve come across many universal truths. Child labor laws are strict and necessary, and it’s damn hard putting together a decent love song. It can be just as hard as asking a girl out on a date or moving out of your ex-girlfriend’s mom’s house. However, some bands have managed to pull off the love song thing pretty well. You got U2’s “With or Without You.” There’s “Something” by The Beatles. Of course, there’s always the Dave Matthews mega-hit “I Love Raping College Girls.” These songs can say a lot about an artist and how they deal with love, relationships, as well as forced sexual intercourse. They tell us something deep within the musician’s heart that we can relate to and empathize with. Songs like this can also help sexy up an evening at home alone, huffing ether and trying on kimonos.
On such an enchanted evening, I had been chatting up a lady with a sexy voice down at the 911 dispatch. After taking down my address, she was playing hard to get. She kept saying, “Someone will be there shortly.” I don’t know what kind of new, sexy games women are up to these days, but I likes it. I had to set up the ambience quick because time was running out.
I threw on my hot pocket eatin’ kimono and booked it to the 7-11. For food, I went with Combos. Of course I got the big bag of pretzel\pepperoni. For drink I got the name brand Listerine. Flavor: Cool mint, everybody knows that it goes best with pretzel and jerky flavors. For music, I went for a long shot. I had bought the album by mistake. I was at the store looking for some Thompson’s water seal to huff and ended up buying Thomas and Sampson’s latest album. I’m told that it’s “a series of twelve non-traditional love songs.” The cover is arty with little pastel birds all over it – the perfect musical scenario for me and my mystery lady to rock the night away. So I got home, exchanged my kimono for my love havin’ cape, and turned up the tunes.
I thought the songs were supposed to be about love. Every line had to rhyme and the lyrics were talking all kinds of jive about laughing, smiling, dancing, and having little babies. There was nothing about lying, fighting, incapacitating, and cocaine-induced seizures. These songs were not written by someone acquainted with true love or the state penitentiary. One song kept repeating: “You better fly, fly, fly/ cry, cry, cry/ before you die.” All they’re missing is try, high, and bye. When they ran out of rhymes, they used off-set “harmony” filler like “ooh woo ooh’s” and “ba di ba’s.” The narrator of the songs is described as “frustrated, angry, or even violent.” Unless you’re worried about being ooh woo wooed to death or la la la’ed into a wheel chair by a band from Dallas, the listener need not fear.
The album is titled When The Lower Resembles The Higher There Will Be Harmony Upon Reflection. Way to go guys. Somebody got a new version of refrigerator vocabulary magnets for Valentine’s Day. The music itself would be better without vocals but not much. They have a mediocre guitar with very under-produced vocals over the tip, boom, tap of a low-end drum machine. It reminded me of two drunken girls singing karaoke down at J.J. Crackenpuff’s. They know me down there. Ask anybody.
Needless to say my lady friend never showed. My ex-girlfriend’s mom said it was because of all the acne and body hair, but I blame Thomas and Sampson for that…and the bed-wetting.
