Now that MTV has about as much to do with music as Naked Lunch has to do with food, the Internet has become our primary source for music videos. With the Internet, though, there is no filter. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well here, residents of the Interzone, is the chaff. It’s your penance for a lifetime of sins: Music Video Hell.

Is Jesse Eisenberg the poor man’s Michael Cera or is Michael Cera the poor man’s Jesse Eisenberg? This is a debate that has shaken Assault headquarters to its very core.  I, myself, am more of a Cera fan. For one thing, he was in Arrested Development. I mean, come on. Also: he is the disembodied voice of Sal Viscuso in Children’s Hospital. Has Eisenberg done anything even remotely hysterical as either of those roles? Not even close. He was in Zombieland, and Zombieland sucked. Sorry, but it’s true.

While I enjoy Michael Cera’s oeuvre, though, I’m not a big enough fan to write a love song to him. That sort of thing I save for the likes of Jon Hamm. My Jon Hamm tribute will never see the light of day, though, because some things you should just keep to yourself. Reggie Ginn, performing under the name Loverly, should keep just about everything to herself. That includes her music video for the song “My My Michael Cera.” It’s pretty awful.

“These eyes cry every night for you,” sings Loverly, immediately launching the song into obsessed stalker territory. She then goes on to add such non sequiturs as “I would gladly move all up in the sticks as long as I get my Michael fix.” This is how you can tell she is clearly delusional, for it is well known that Michael Cera in fact lives in Hollywood, not the sticks. But perhaps if this mentally unbalanced woman were to move to the hinterlands, far away from the rest of us, it would not be such a bad thing. I hear the Kaczynski cabin is up for sale.

Loverly has the look of someone who is probably a recovering emo fan, with her nose ring and dark, streaked hair. This is reinforced by lyrics such as “Ooh, you make me smile, and I haven’t smiled in a while.” I’m sure Cera would be quite pleased to learn that he brought joy to such a hitherto unhappy lass. He would then take out a restraining order against her after enduring the three and half minutes of video that follow that sentiment. Our lovelorn singer spends much of the video hanging out in front a bunch of lockers, the likes of which you usually see in a bus or train station. Does this mean she is en route to track down Michael Cera as the video is shot? Is it, in addition to being a music video, a documentary of her dangerous obsession? We also see shots of her at home, but these are all in black in white. It’s as if she is trying to tell us that these moments of solitude are a thing of the past now that she is on her way to meet her unwitting future lover.

This video came out in 2010 and Michael Cera is, as I write this article, still alive. This means that Loverly probably never made it to Cera’s sprawling mansion in the hills of California, or the “house the Bluths built” as it is commonly known. Where is she these days, then? Perhaps after viewing the Social Network, she changed her mind and is now en route to the Eisenberg estate. I, for one, am not such a fair weather fan. Although I was not enamored with his performance in Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, I still remain a Michael Cera fan.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc2Wz_OaYR8

Here’s a recently released video of Rye Rye performing “Better Than You” at something called Hardfest. Rye Rye’s debut album, Go! Pop! Bang!, will be out soon on M.I.A.’s N.E.E.T label.

Rye Rye:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Twitter

If there’s one thing that never fails to amaze me in my journey through life, it’s the total unwillingness of people to recognize truly “edgy” music that doesn’t conform to their personal “standards” of what constitutes “legitimate art.” To wit: all these Ke$ha H8ers on the internet that refuse to accept the simple fact that this bitch owns their pussies. TO WIT:

Oh snap! Local sleaze-rockers (and Assault favorites!) The Streets On Fire have released a new video for their song “Astronaut Love Triangle”! The video was filmed right here in Chicago, and was directed by Daniel Ryan and Aaron Edwards. This shit is so tight that Kanye West could conceivably wear it as pants while performing at an awards show. If you like it, make sure to pick a copy of their record This Is Fancy; your best opportunity to do so is this Friday (12/3) at Beat Kitchen, where they’re performing with Emcee Phase and Magic Milk.*

*In case you don’t know, Magic Milk is fucking amazing. I watched them decimate a crowd of Wrigleyville Chads at Rockit two weeks ago, and it was phenomenal.

Now that MTV has about as much to do with music as KFC has to do with Kentucky, the Internet has become our primary source for music videos. With the Internet, though, there is no filter. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well here, pledge drive fanatics, is the chaff. It’s your penance for a lifetime of sins: Music Video Hell.

There are things that make me truly embarrassed to be a white male:  NASCAR, mullets, Jimmy Buffet, Republicans, the history of the United States, and now “Good Radiation,” a fan-made rap song about National Public Radio.  As any amount of common sense would tell you, a fan-made rap song about NPR is something that is just not going to turn out as anything other than agonizingly terrible.  In that respect, this video will not surprise you in the least.

When you watch the video for “Good Radiation,” you may think that you are seeing Mark Zuckerberg branch out from his duties as CEO of Facebook into a career of awful rap music.  Not so.  It’s just a dorky white guy who looks a lot like Mark Zuckerberg.  That’s lucky for him, because it’s probably the only reason he is able to get laid.  One can imagine the shock and horror of the poor woman who sleeps with him only to discover afterward that he is not, in fact, a multi-billionaire but just some dork who really likes listening to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

The Mark Zuckerberg clone comments on the video that “It is for hard-core NPR fans who listen to hip-hop.”  You know what, though?  I listen to NPR quite a lot.  I also listen to hip-hop.  I’m just as likely to be listening to The Roots as I am to be listening to This American Life.  And yet I hate this song, and I hate this video, and its mere existence makes me question whether I should ever listen to NPR or hip-hop again.  If this is truly the intersection of those two worlds, then they need to stay far, far away from each other.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way, though.  Terri Gross’s interview with Jay-Z on Fresh Air was fantastic.  And… OK, that’s about all I’ve got.  That’s something, though, right?  Terri Gross wasn’t embarrassing.  She asked thoughtful questions and didn’t try to bust any dope rhymes.  Jay-Z, in turn, gave interesting and thoughtful answers and was not a ridiculous asshole like, for instance, Gene Simmons (a white guy) was when he was on the show.

What I’m saying is that I’m not going to let this video deter me.  I can appreciate both good radio and good hip-hop.  I can also appreciate that I am not capable of producing either of those things.  I am, however, capable of finding and ragging on shitty music videos.  You’re welcome.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxRgNnue-zk

Hey! Look at this! On the official Assault.it list of Special Favorites, Chicago’s own Geronimo! rank pretty close to the top. They blend mathy aggression with the hypnotic jangle of post-punk indie rock. And they absolutely decimate their enemies in a live setting. The trio recently released a video for “Design Yourself A Heart,” a definite highlight from their debut full-length Fuzzy Dreams (which you can buy on iTunes or directly from the band [for only $5!!!]). It’s a strange and somewhat disturbing video, and you probably won’t want to drink any water for a couple hours. Good job, Geronimo! – you’ve kicked our asses once again!

Geronimo! – “Design Yourself a Heart” from Northern Outpost on Vimeo.

Straight up – I can’t tell if this song is mediocre or shitty. But the video’s pretty cool; this is like what would happen if the Dishwalla ’90s collided with the modern day. So it’s slightly boring, totally pretentious, and undeniably eye-catching. Speaking of eyes, I feel like Benny Marchant is staring into mine while he sings this mid-tempo love song. I don’t know if I should feel flattered or file a restraining order. You make the call:

Now that MTV has about as much to do with music as KFC has to do with Kentucky, the Internet has become our primary source for music videos. With the Internet, though, there is no filter. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well here, ninjas and Juggalos, is the chaff. It’s your penance for a lifetime of sins: Music Video Hell.

Being a parent is easy. Lots of people do it. All it takes is forgetting to wear a jimmy hat. Being a good parent is just about the most difficult thing in the world. Most people don’t get it right. That’s why strippers, reality television, and Juggalos exist. What happens when one of the original members of the Insane Clown Posse has a kid? It makes me feel like the best father in the world. I’m not a perfect parent. Far from it. But when I watch Violent J’s progeny slapping wrestlers around and posing with guys in evil clown makeup in the video for “Bad Bad Man,” I feel like I’ve mostly made pretty good parental decisions.

Violent JJ was five years old when this video was made (which was not too long ago). Five years old. Think about that while you watch this atrocity. If you’re a parent, that should really piss you off. If you’re not a parent, it’s probably just silly and ridiculous. Either way, there’s really no way this kid is going to grow up to be normal. More likely than not, he’ll end up appearing on A&E in a show called Growing Up Juggalo, in which he yells at his now aged father (who is still in full psycho clown regalia) to turn down the stereo while he tries to study how the fuck magnets work for his remedial science class. Then he’ll flip out and rob a convenience store for money to finance his meth habit.

Showbiz parents are really the worst. They give their kids awful names like “Apple” and “Moxie CrimeFighter” and drive them into careers that are at best only a shadow of what their parents accomplished. When what their parents (or at least one of them) accomplished is to dress up like extras from Killer Klowns from Outer Space and rap about drinking Faygo and killing people, there are bound to be years of therapy and self-medication ahead. That’s why I mostly just feel bad for Violent JJ. His showbiz name is barely even distinguishable from his father’s. Maybe my dire predictions for him will prove wrong and when he reaches his adolescent rebellion phase he’ll study physics and listen to classical music in retaliation for years of being dragged along to the Gathering of the Juggalos. Watching this video, though, I’m not filled with an overwhelming sense of optimism.

What is it that gets our gears of interest cranking? What is that magical quality that attracts us to a new artist, convinces us to stop emailing each other extreme ballsack injury videos and actually pay attention to something foreign and possibly awesome? There’s no simple answer for that; much like mating rituals, it’s different for everyone. For me, it’s often all in the name. I get emails about new bands all the time and I can usually tell, just from the subject line, whether I want to listen or if maybe I’d prefer to open my wrists with a rusty nail dipped in canceraids. But sometimes, and this is rare, I get an email about a band and I just say “Fuck it, I’m posting that, I don’t care.” I haven’t even watched this video. But the band is called Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Check it out:

Now that MTV has about as much to do with music as KFC has to do with Kentucky, the Internet has become our primary source for music videos. With the Internet, though, there is no filter. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well here, Adams and Eves, is the chaff. It’s your penance for a lifetime of sins: Music Video Hell.

Throughout rock ‘n’ roll history there have been bands named after places. You’ve got your Boston, your Kansas, your Asia. You know what you don’t see, though? Band names like The Boston, The Kansas or The Asia. Why? Because that would be pretty fucking presumptuous. Well, that’s where The Maine comes in. Not only does their band name flip the bird to our country’s 23rd state, it is made even more insulting by the fact that they are actually from Arizona. Arizona! I’m fairly certain there isn’t a state in the Union less like Maine than Arizona.

Oh, and also: they suck. Their music is the sort of turgid bullshit one finds while listening to ear-raping Clear Channel radio stations that have names like The Rock 105 FM or Modern Rock WKRM. It’s bland, corporate pop-punk that could only have been conceived in a board room by a bunch of old white guys asking themselves, “What do the young, hip kids like to ‘rock out’ to these days?” I guarantee that at least one of their songs will eventually be used during a training sequence in a feel-good movie about a destitute, paraplegic orphan with mild autism who overcomes the odds to become football’s greatest hero.

The protagonist of the provocatively-titled “Inside of You” is not paraplegic, but he certainly has other obstacles to overcome. For instance: he appears to be in some sort of pedophile Gomorrah, populated by a leering old man and a roving band of hedonistic fetishists. The video begins in black and white with the young boy weathering the inappropriate touching of the aforementioned old man while sitting on the front stoop of his house. He then wanders around a group of adults, desperate to tell them about the terrifying encounter he just had, but they are all either deaf to his pleas or eager to engage in inappropriate touching of their own. Yearning for escape, he gazes out his window through a kaleidoscopic spyglass made out of a couple toilet paper rolls (such is his poverty), hoping to find a better place. Instead, he witnesses a wild orgy orchestrated by the members of The Maine dressed like escapees from Stanley Kubrick’s nightmares.

The lead singer, John O’Callaghan, sings “I can’t get inside of you,” and in the context of what’s going on in the video, it comes off like the desperate plea of a drunken pederast. Well, I assume the drunkenness on account of his Irish surname. He does this while dressed in an outfit that looks like something the Mad Hatter would have worn had he gone to an all-boys Catholic school as a child. This is not a man I would let my own child anywhere near, but some parents do awful things to advance their child’s acting career.

At the end of the video, the toilet paper roll kaleidoscope breaks and the young boy is heartbroken. Now that he has seen the lascivious pleasures that await him in adulthood, how can he return to the hum-drum world of his current existence? There is a glimmer of hope, though, when some of the evil magic held captive by this device escapes, and the boy is confronted with a now-colorized girl offering him… what is that, a scrotum? Upon first viewing I thought it was an apple, like some sort of Adam and Eve shit. Now I don’t know what it is. And really, that sums up this video as a whole: I don’t know what it is, but it vaguely resembles a scrotum.

How much do we love Avenged Sevenfold? A few weeks ago, Third World Timmy sent me a link to a preview of this video. A preview, of a music video. Oh man – THE ANTICIPATION! Well, the wait is over – hopefully this lives up to Tim’s dreams. Or, should I say. . . NIGHTMARES? Muahahahahahahahahahahahaha! (Avenged Sevenfold’s new album Nightmare is out now.)

Attention, all Four Year Strong fans: the band’s video for “It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now” is this week’s free video download from iTunes. CLICK RIGHT HERE and you’ll be instantly transported to a magical place where you can download a free Four Year Strong video. There are some fairly hardcore fans of FYS among the Assault.it staff, and even I have to give them their propers for being just about as spastic, crazy, and mind-blowing as a pop-punk could possibly be. These guys are so ferocious that it should be illegal; I wouldn’t go to one of their shows without an entourage the size of MC Hammer’s circa 1992. These guys are so nuts that their last CD came with a jock strap. Four Year Strong play so fast that their first manager, Sonic The Hedgehog, told them to slow down. This band is so good that we published a complimentary review of their latest album, which you can read here.

Now please, go download the video. You’ll like it.

Now that MTV has about as much to do with music as KFC has to do with Kentucky, the Internet has become our primary source for music videos. With the Internet, though, there is no filter. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well here, damas y caballeros, is the chaff. It’s your penance for a lifetime of sins: Music Video Hell.

There are so many things to hate about this video by Dirty Heads featuring Rome of Sublime with Rome. First of all: Rome of Sublime with Rome. I was never that big a Sublime fan back in their heyday, but I am an anomaly among my friends and peers in that regard. Lots of people liked Sublime. That is why the wheels of capitalism have kept on turning well past former lead singer Bradley Nowell’s death, keeping the band in motion like the reanimated corpse of bad reggae-rock.

I don’t know who Rome is, other than some guy who apparently sounds vaguely like Bradley Nowell. My hopes that it would be douchebag sports commentator Jim Rome were quickly dashed while watching the video. I’m still not sure which one of the Future Jimmy Buffetts of America in this video was actually Rome, but I’m positive that none of them will have their own show on ESPN anytime soon. Unless, that is, ultimate Frisbee finally gains the popularity it so richly deserves.

The video for “Lay Me Down” follows a couple of privileged-looking young white people who, by the lyrics to the song, we presume to be a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, only without any of the elements that made Bonnie and Clyde interesting. Attention songwriters: two lovers on the run from the law? It’s been done. If you don’t have anything new to bring to the table, then write about something else. Suggestion to spice the old formula up a bit: one of the lovers is novelty songwriter and avowed illegal immigrant hater Ray Stevens, who in an ironic twist of fate is forced to flee across the border after being framed for a murder he didn’t commit.

What makes the video really irritating, though, aside from featuring guest vocals from the guy pissing on Bradley Nowell’s grave, is the patronizing tone it takes towards the locals in what appears to be the sort of Mexican border town to which lazy writers like to have their protagonists escape. Just check out the screenshot of one of the band members showing one of the locals how to make the “shaka” sign with her hand. She should make a fist and punch that condescending asshole in the balls. If this were a real Mexican border town, drug cartel goons would decapitate those poser dipshits and drop their heads off on the other side of the fence just to show the DEA what’s up. Now THAT would make a compelling video.

Looks like Vevo is posting mad music videos again and advertising them all over YouTube. This particular advervideo is one that I stumbled across and actually enjoyed. (Who wouldn’t enjoy Charlize Theron killing terrorists with samurai swords and ninja starsin hopes of saving The Killers front man Brandon Flowers!?)

Now that MTV has about as much to do with music as KFC has to do with Kentucky, the Internet has become our primary source for music videos. With the Internet, though, there is no filter. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well here, toilet dwellers, is the chaff. It’s your penance for a lifetime of sins: Music Video Hell.

The best/worst thing about the Internet is that anyone can become a celebrity, whether he or she wants to or not. For instance: the lady in this video, who shot thoroughly compelling video of herself sitting on the toilet and singing about it. Apparently her “friend & sis” then took it upon herself to post it to YouTube as revenge for some MySpace shenanigans that occurred two years prior. Hell hath no fury like a MySpace friend scorned. It’s a good thing no one’s actually on MySpace anymore, except for a handful of musicians and the lesser musicians who comment on their pages, “YO! YUO SHUOLD CHECK OUT MY TRACKZ BECUZ THEIR THA BOMB!”

But back to the matter at hand: sittin’ on tha toilet. This video is minimalism at its best. One woman, one camera, one toilet, and four words repeated ad infinitum. This woman, whose name is apparently Nonnie according to the video’s description, is a master of the hook. She may only be singing four words a capella, accompanied by nothing but a few verbal tics and the bobbing and weaving of her own head, but she makes those four words count. If this video doesn’t leave you singing “sittin’ on the toilet” to yourself over and over again until you are forced to saw off your own head just to end the pain, you are a much stronger person than I.

Oh, did I mention that this video has had over 7,700,000 views to date? French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal is perhaps best known for what has become known as “Pascal’s Wager,” an argument for believing in God that goes something like this: You might as well believe in God, because if you don’t and it turns out you’re wrong, you’ve effectively doomed yourself to an eternity of eating Satan’s asshole every night for dinner. As a rebuttal to this argument, I would like to say: “Over 7,700,000 views, you son of a bitch. Where’s your God now?”

The original video has had embedding disabled, so what you will find below is some sort of bizarre, headache-inducing remix. There are more remixes out there where that came from, too, because on the Internet everything is remixed. You really owe it to yourself to watch the original first, though. The others lack its purity and singularity of purpose. Now flush.

Lately it seems like everybody I know is up my ass about how much the Gaslight Anthem sucks, almost as if I’m the band’s official spokesperson, or secret ghostwriter, or somehow responsible for the success of The 59 Sound. I’m not, I’m not, and I wasn’t, but you can definitely count me among the band’s fans. This here is their new video for the title track from the recently released American Slang, which I don’t think is as good as the record before it but definitely not a total clunker, either. And I think this song is one of the ones that prove they’ve still got it. I’d like for all the haters to now place this video into their mouths and straight-up suck it:

Now that MTV has about as much to do with music as KFC has to do with Kentucky, the Internet has become our primary source for music videos. With the Internet, though, there is no filter. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well here, puppets and puppeteers, is the chaff. It’s your penance for a lifetime of sins: Music Video Hell.

I fucking hate ventriloquists. I hate them with a passion only rivaled only by my hatred for mimes. Why do I hate them so much? Well, for one thing, they’re never funny. Ever. I’m not sure how Jeff Dunham got his own show on Comedy Central, but thank goodness it was cancelled after only one season because otherwise I would have lost all faith in humanity. The other reason I hate ventriloquists, though, is because they’re creepy and wrong. Exhibit A: a ventriloquist choir given their 15 minutes of fame by Conan O’Brien back in the ‘90s. They’re known as the VentriloChoir, and they are the stuff of nightmares.

In this video, the VentriloChoir is appearing on Hungarian television, where they were invited to appear based on their prior work with Conan. They are performing a cover of The Beatles’ “Yesterday” for their Hungarian audience, and I’m sure Ringo Starr’s career is rolling in its grave. I may have done you a disservice by telling you the back story, because really the video is best enjoyed out of context. However, even knowing what you now know about them, I’m fairly confident this video will still make you piss your pants in terror.

I don’t know what became of the VentriloChoir after this performance. I’m sure I could find out on Wikipedia, but I’d only hate myself if I put that much thought into the matter. Whatever their fate in real life, they will live on forever in the ethers of the Internet, where nothing is allowed to die. Ever. No matter how absurd it is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go try to drink away the memory of those awful ventriloquist dolls and their cold, dead eyes.

The Dirty Heads are a bunch of dirty hippies currently touring with the “new” version of Sublime that I’m not even going to waste any breath taking about because it’s so repulsive. But the Dirty Heads are okay, don’t blame them. We have the official video here for “Lay Me Down,” which you’ll like if you’re into the whole “dirty hippie” thing. I’m kind of a dirty hippie myself, but my girlfriend does make me shower once every two weeks, whether I need or not. So let’s blaze one up and watch, shall we? (Warning: the song does feature the fake Bradley Nowell, so close your ears during the chorus.)

Now that MTV has about as much to do with music as KFC has to do with Kentucky, the Internet has become our primary source for music videos. With the Internet, though, there is no filter. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well here, pimps and ho’s, is the chaff. It’s your penance for a lifetime of sins: Music Video Hell.

Warning:  You’re going to want to be up to date on all your vaccinations before you view this week’s video. It’s a delightful, low-budget affair by Memphis Blac, a rapper by day and a hooker with a heart of gold by night.  The video for Jones’ “Got Dat Work” could easily be confused for a skit from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! with its VHS tape video quality, jarring quick cuts and Buñuellian surrealism.  This video isn’t a joke, though.  Memphis Blac and her fellow prostitute-slash-rapper Smokahontas Jones are serious about giving cheap handjobs to strangers.

These two women are truly Amazonian.  They are the sort of women Robert Crumb would desperately want to get a piggy back ride from if he came across them on the street.  And really, the street would be the best place to look for them because they have sex for money.  In case that part of the equation was in any doubt, they bust lyrics like, “You need at least three g’s to play with these DDDs” and “He liked domination, yeah that’s what’s up.  He paid me five g’s, I beat that muthafucka up.”  At least if you ever decide to hire one of them you can consult this video for their price structure.

Oh, and then there are sparkles for some reason.  They’re all over the place.  It must have been the demo filter that came with whatever shareware video editing program they used to put this monstrosity together.  Either that or Memphis and Smokahontas are two bootylicious vampires.  That would actually make for a very interesting Twilight sequel.

Hitting up Memphis Blac’s MySpace page—and really, is it any surprise she has a MySpace page?—I learned that she has been the “underground queen of the south for 10 plus years” and she has “recorded with many of the greats in rap, Pimp C, Odd Squad, Mudducks, Hot Girlz, and many more.”  Here I thought I knew a thing or two about rap, yet I’ve never heard of a single one of these people.  Obviously, I need to buckle down and start listening to some more music.

I have to give credit where credit is due on finding this video.  The very funny Patton Oswalt posted it to Facebook with the comment, “Oh look, gonorrhea made a video.”  That’s about as good a one sentence summary of it as you’ll find.  Hit up the video below.  It’s an STD for your eyes and your soul.

So, this is kind of a strange video. It involves both Tila Tiequila AND a glory hole, but I assure you that it is safe for work. It is also, at the end, somewhat reminiscent of Zoolander. The song is pretty tight – at first I thought it was gonna be weak dad-rock, but there are enough weird flourishes (especially via the keyboards) that it becomes enjoyable and almost Wilco-ish. Also, the lead singer is hilarious looking, and I want him to come to our next party and make weird faces at us. Anyway, here’s the video – “My Own Adventure,” by Chicago’s own Oh My God. (The song is from their latest album, The Night Undoes The Work Of The Day, which is out now on Split Red.)