Death Grips, Eminem – Revisiting the Hip Hop That Left an Impression, for Better or Worse

I started taking hip hop seriously in September of 2013. Maybe someday I’ll speak more on why I wasn’t taking it seriously before. That year was a bit of a renaissance for me; I found myself trying genres I had never considered before just for the hell of it. Industrial in the “old school”, “neofolk”, and “electro-” flavors. Female-fronted pop. Death metal. Post-rock. Black metal. Shoegaze. Breakcore. Delta blues. Psytrance. You see, I had always been a classic rock / new wave / post-punk / college rock guy growing up. Things can change if you care enough to make it happen. Remember that shit.

Arguably, hip hop was the biggest departure. I’m not a lyrics-minded music listener! I don’t respond well to poetry! I can’t relate with gangster shit! I didn’t grow up in a big city! Blah blah blah. I got over myself and here’s where I started:

Death Grips

Death Grips

Someday I’ll go see the big scary screaming shirtless tattooed man live, and then I’ll have reached the highest plane of enlightenment.

My first real, deliberate, open-minded encounter with hip hop was with Death Grips. As with anything else, I tend to enjoy the weirder, aggressive, atypical bands that skirt the confines of their respective genres before I ease myself into the more common, obvious, meat-and-potatoes bands. In 2013, when the coconut fell on top of my head and I finally explored the enormous and varied genre, Death Grips was just about the weirdest, most aggressive, and most atypical hip hop group there was at the time. That fact is still true in 2021, actually. And if you really, really, REALLY want to split hairs here, Death Grips isn’t even a hip hop group in the first place! I don’t believe they are; fucking fight me. They’re a hardcore rave rock band.

Everything about this group appealed to me. MC Ride (Stefan Burnett) and Zach Hill, these two seem to operate on a completely different plane of existence. Look up any interview on Youtube, they project this sizzling intensity that is completely unnecessary. It’s visceral. It’s admirable. It’s in their hyperactive, confrontational, belligerent music.

Exmilitary, their mixtape, was my first exposure to Death Grips’ caustic, obnoxious catalog, and it’s still my personal favorite. I have a lot of really pleasant autumn 2013 mental snapshots tied into those 48-minutes, and it’s going to take something truly incredible to topple it off my pedestal. Your Wu-Tangs and your Ice Cubes and your Kanyes and your Kendricks and your P-Diddies and your Snoop Doggies can all suck a lemon.

Eminem

Eminem

No! Not that! Anything but the middle fingers! I feel thoroughly owned!

If Death Grips was my first deliberate encounter with hip hop, then Eminem was my first forced-upon encounter with hip hop! And then it took me 13 years to recover! I grew up in the Detroit area, and I was in middle school when Marshall Mathers was beginning his rise to prominence. I have little frame of reference for how huge this guy actually was in the early ’00s for the rest of the country, or even the world, but in my Detroit suburb he was everything to all the 13-year-old creepy, white, immature edgelords. And that’s because Mathers himself was a creepy, white, immature edgelord. He was a kindred spirit to many, and I knew a lot of really angry pre-teens who sympathized with every exaggerated feeling that Mathers put to tape as Eminem. Needless to say, I found it off-putting. To this day, Eminem’s music transports me right back to 7th grade like nothing else can. It’s not a good feeling.

My sister loved him and would play his stuff in her car. A high school friend idolized him and made up a story about running into him at the mall and sharing a cry together (seriously). Even my parents liked “Cleanin’ Out My Closet”.

Then the inevitable fall happened in the late ’00s, but Eminem continues pumping out critically panned albums to this day. It took me a while to circle back to Eminem once I got into the genre proper, but right now I’m sticking with his three-peat run of classics: The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP, and The Eminem Show. And even if these three records overwhelm my synapses with memories of ages 11 – 14, I can honestly find quite a lot to enjoy about each one. You can’t knock his unparalleled showmanship, that’s for sure. I’d love to see what Eminem slipping into self-parody sounds like, so eventually I’ll hit up his later career. With much gusto.

Other Quick Thoughts

Mike Patton

Yo Mike Patton, if I outgrew you at 34 years old, what’s your excuse?

-Bands that sound like Mr. Bungle are still around and they still drop albums that sound like Mr. Bungle. 2021 sees new releases by French band 6:33 and Australian band Twelve Foot Ninja, and it’s like…I’m a little bit over this type of sound? I’m at the point in my life where my head is already filled with enough weirdo funky avant-garde metal to make room for any new or unheard versions. Did I grow up?

–The War On Drugs? Just like their last two albums, the newest release I Don’t Live Here Anymore is pretty hyped right now. There are only a few of their songs that I find indispensable (my favorite is “Under the Pressure”, the opener of 2014’s Lost in the Dream), but I often feel that I wish I liked them more than I do. As usual, I’ll keep an open mind with this new one, but, come on, the War On Drugs is spring and summer music. Dropping at the end of October? That’s fuckin’ insanity.

-Two months until the end of the year. My list of 2021 releases has now officially topped 400+ albums and there’s no fucking way I’m going to have time to listen to everything that has piqued my interest. 2021 albums will certainly spillover into 2022 for a month or two in my Newer Release Roundups, and I’m probably going to tack an extra update onto each week for quite a few weeks. Maybe Sundays? That would make the most sense. This blog has helped me tremendously with keeping up with new music. I’d be just another cranky “this was a bad year for new releases” kind of guy otherwise. We all have those friends. They suck.

And that’s a wrap! Thanks for “reading”.


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Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6 – “When Superman Learned to Fly” / “Last Day”

* Part 6 of 8 of the Superman and the Men of Steel storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6 – “When Superman Learned to Fly” • “Last Day”! Once again, two side stories that aim to flesh out more Superman backstory before we get back to the main plot. In the previous installment, we learn about the events that led up to Superman being launched alone from his exploding home planet, we see him crash land on Earth without a scratch, and we see Jonathan Kent and Martha Clark scoop the little pisser up and take him home. Some other stuff happens involving the time-travelling Anti-Superman Army in the Fortress of Solitude in the past and there’s not enough LSD in the world to help me comprehend any of that right now.

We also get an extended backstory of Jonathan and Martha’s failed attempts to conceive, which ends right before Baby Superman crashes in the field near the road their truck is stalled on.

I’m all for backstory! I love backstory! I don’t love time-traveling weirdos talking about green Kryptonite engines and tesseracts and sunstones and other hippie shit. Hopefully that stuff is kept to a minimum in Issue #6, but it won’t be. ACTION!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6 [April, 2012]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“When Superman Learned to Fly”

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6

Oh man, I don’t know how much more Action my mushy little Earth brain can take. A little man in a chair is talking to a large group about the big gray block on the desk in front of him that contains the green Kryptonite engine stolen from the Fortress of Solitude. Apparently, this little man can make the substance from this “limitless power source” that can kill Superman (or change him or make him horny or whatever you want).

He asks the Anti-Superman Army what they will give him in exchange. The Anti-Superman Army soldiers have speech bubbles that are the same colors as their eyes, and this may or may not be vital to this straightforward story! They all protest this little man’s devious tit-for-tat offer considering, well, they fucking took the engine in the first place. Where does this little guy get off! The little guy explains that he knows they are all looking for vengeance against Superman; it’s a common goal! He’s offering a piece of Kryptonite to each of them to do with it as they wish, all he asks is one favor from each of them: suck his dick! I mean, it could be. He trails off at that point and we move on to another scene.

Hey, I didn’t know Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was on some robot octopus floating around space. I thought it was, like, on a mountain? Am I stupid? Anyway, I guess we’re in the far past because a slightly miffed Superman is talking to the Legion of Superheroes, who just time-traveled and crashed his space pad with no warning. A Legion of Superheroes representative starts talking about tesseracts and the 31st century. She asks “The sunstone lattice is still alive and communicating, but without its K-Mineral power source?” and since only four of those words make sense to me I start glazing over and drooling. Superman calls someone “Cosmic Man” and another “Saturn Woman” and I start snorting, snapping me out of it.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6

The Moon Patrol is talking goofy talk again.

Again, I’m not in the right mood to attempt to decipher any of this blarney! Bottom line, Superman has a battery that these time-travelers need. Superman says he’s from five years in the future and has already seen the rocket in good shape, so he knows everything worked out and nothing’s wrong! Superman hands them a Duracell. Time for lunch!

But not so fast. There’s a real octopus hanging from the ceiling! Superman asks the octopus if he’s Erik Drekken. The octopus answers “HGMMBBLLBBLMMAH Heer R U UMMA OV 2morrow RACE !NOW!- GENis: ENCEPHalo SAPIENS tyrannus!” and I guess everyone including me is having a fucking stroke right now. What does this have to do with Martha Clark’s poisonous uterus??

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6

On top of everything else, now we gotta deal with Cthulhu. SMDH

Superman starts beating up the cocksuckin’ octopus! Just punching it right in its squishy body. The Legion hangs back and starts commentating the fight, with one of them saying “We all know what happens next…you know why we returned to the past…THIS past…” Superman’s eyes are all aglow with fiery redness as he attempts to talk some sense into the big squelchy octopus. Needing its help or something like that.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6

Wrasslin’ dinosaurs! ACTION!

The octopus spits some alien dude out of its butthole and then Superman starts yelling at the alien. One of the Legion, meanwhile, figures out where the Anti-Superman Army is hiding (in the one place no one would ever look), and then Erik the Alien Dude turns into a dinosaur. And then Superman punches the dinosaur. I’m about ready to lose my fucking mind about all this.

After one of the Legion uses his lightning powers on the dinosaur, Erik is finally revealed for a second as some James Joyce-lookin’ nerd still talking crazy talk in his purple speech bubbles. He finally ends up turning into a worm, but the Legion Lady says she found the Kryptonite location in Erik’s memory.

Superman is concerned about all of Erik’s nonsensical babbling, something about the evil that’s inside of him. Legion Lady says this string of words: “Nimrod the Hunter used a teleport rifle to fire a microscopic lead pellet into your brain. The pellet’s hollow, and inside, there’s tesseract space big enough to fit 30 people”.

Good thing some time-travelers are around to know everything about everything!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6

Now, son, there’s a time and a place for backyard wrestling. We don’t want to start suplexing the bulls.

Flashback! Clark Kent’s a child wranglin’ bulls on the farm. He tells his pops that he’s been thinking a lot lately about that ship that brought him to Earth, thinking his real parents threw him away like the garbage that he is! Jonathan Kent assures him that, no way Jose! His real parents sent him away to Earth to do some good! Clark says “yeah you’re right!” and then asks his old man if he and Ma want to blast off into space with him if he ever has to go back. Jonathan Kent freaks out at the thought of ever travelling 2.5 miles away from his shitty farm, but then Clark reasons that he’ll never be going back anyway.

As we see a young Clark up in a tree shooting empty beer cans with his fuckin’ laser eyeballs, the Legion of Time-Travelling Dickheads is snooping in the distance. Present-day Superman is sensing this memory infiltration (or is it five-years-in-the-future Superman?), and the Legion informs him that this was the day they all met for the first time. The flashback shows the Legion giving him some super-secret decoder ring or something. The present-day Legion asks him if there’s anything is unusual about his memories, and Superman’s like “yeeeaaahhh, they’re unusual!”. I guess the lead pellet in Superman’s brain is affecting his memories, but he didn’t even know it was there because it’s unaffected by Superman’s magnetic detection abilities! Superman’s worried about this 30-person-lead-pellet expanding suddenly in his head, but the Legion tells him that none of these people want to be crushed by Superman’s impenetrable brain tissue! So they won’t. Now that Lightning Man has opened up a Time Bubble, and now that Legion Lady also has Erik Drekken’s tesseract key, she can sense her future self within the lead pellet within Superman’s brain! And Ho-Ly Shit I can’t fucking wait until this issue is done.

Next thing I know, the Legion Mofos pop into Superman’s brain to try to steal the Kryptonite engine back from the little guy that I still don’t know the name of. The little guy barely fights back and suddenly the engine explodes into shards of green Kryptonite. This makes Superman, uh, somewhat uncomfortable.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6

Gross, dude.

Superman tries to fight back against this unpleasantness, knowing that the ship needs the very same Kryptonite that’s currently killing him. Eventually, he breaks free of some purple Erik Drekken thing and is able to shove his hand into the ship. This gives the ship enough power to shoot the purple Erik Drekken thing with a beam of light. Somehow. I don’t know.

The Legion comes back and congratulates Superman for saving the past, which they always knew he’d do anyway, so never mind! Fuck it! They warp him away in a Time Bubble before the real present-day Superman returns. I guess. This story blows.

“Last Day”
Written by: Sholly Fisch

Yuck. OK, hopefully the backup story will make trudging through this wretched-ass issue worth it.

Clark Kent is drawn like Harry Potter. He’s selling his parents’ farm to some friend of theirs named Mr. Fry. After he gets the keys, he steps out for a bit to allow Clark to reminisce about the farm. And, oh man, does he ever reminisce all right!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6

You’re a wizard, Harry!

Lots of hootin’ and hollerin’ about all the antics Clark used to pull with his super powers. Kinda like the shit Harry Potter used to pull back at Hogwarts! Eh? Eh? Of course, there’s all the important lessons along with the way: “Bullies are bullies and you have to out-bully the bullies!” Stuff like that!

There’s also a memory where he’s playing with his friend Pete in the river or the creek or the sea or the fjord or whatever it is. Clark tells Pete he’s going to be a reporter, and Pete tells Clark that he’s going to “use his superhuman powers to secretly fight injustice” but then Pete remembers that he doesn’t have any super powers so he’s going to be a millionaire instead. Or work in his dad’s store. Clark boggles at him like a dummy.

And yet another memory where he’s hanging out with Lana Lang as a teenager on top of a barn. She’s drawn like a creepy, soulless Barbie doll. That’s about it.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6

GAH!  Put it away! Get it out of here! There is no God! Help!

Back in the present, Pete and Lana show up to take Clark to the train. After a bout of talking and goofing and joking and japing and talking and joshing and goofing and raping, they notice that Clark’s barely even present in the moment as he continues to stares at some photos on the wall. They leave him alone. He smiles at them. He takes one with him and joins his friends outside.

Final Thoughts

HOW GODDAMN TOUCHING, HUH? What a fucking tumor of an issue. Remove it from my life! The real story continues in Issue #7, and I’ll see you then.


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Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Alias Investigations (Part 5)”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Alias Investigations storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Alias Investigations (Part 5)”! Time to wrap this puppy up. In the previous installment, Jones travels to Washington D.C. to try to get more info about the Keaton campaign. She finds the blonde woman who hired her to find “her sister” at the campaign office, who hurries the fuck out of there when she spots and recognizes Jones. Jones catches her in the back alley and learns that she was hired by the Lawson, Daviano & Silver law firm. THERE, after having some fun trying to scare Lawson, she learns that the law firm was hired by someone else! Mystery upon mystery.

As she stakes out Lawson in the parking garage, Matthew Murdock calls her to let her know that she’s no longer a suspect in the murder because the strangulation marks on the victim showed that the perpetrator had very large man hands. As she thinks about this more deeply, a man with very large man-hands pulls her out of her vehicle and tries to put strangulation marks on her neck.

And that’s it, no time to waste! Let’s go let’s go let’s go let’s motherfucking go!

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [March, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“Alias Investigations (Part 5)”

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Isn’t it bittersweet to already be ending this storyline? Dawwwww?

We start where we left off: Jessica Jones is getting choked out in the parking garage. The creep is telling her that “the best part about this is that I can take your lifeless body out somewhere remote and I can do whatever I want with you”, so this guy seems like a cool-ass dude. “Man Mountain Marko” he fancies himself. Jones ain’t taking this shit anymore, so she breaks free and slams her palms against his ears. She then slams her fist in his dick and balls and knocks him to the ground. “They didn’t tell you that they were siccing you on a super hero type, did they?” she gloats at him, and then asks who sent him.

When he refuses to answer, she punches him in the face. They go back and forth like this for quite a while, actually, until he finally realizes that he’s the one getting beat to shit and she’s not! So she finally gets what she needs from this hired goon and sets off.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

“Fuck You”, huh? Interesting name. Very exotic.

We see some Hollywood director bigshot named Zoumas playing golf while surrounded by corporate lackeys. After he is told that FOX is picking up a script for a movie similar to Zoumas’ project, he pulls out on the spot! And jizzes all over his golf ball, whoops, haha. He says, “fuck it, I’m not married to this project anyway, we’ll just wait for something better to come along”, essentially, moments before Jessica Jones tosses Man Mountain Marko’s unconscious bulk right in front of him. Zoumas and his team aim guns at Jones as she approaches them on the course. She bluffs her bulletproofedness as she approaches like a real badass lady about town. Zoumas takes a pause and then asks his team to give him and Jones a moment alone.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

There’s the Jessica Jones I know from the TV show! A little bullet in the butthole never hurt nobody.

Zoumas starts talking. “It seems you aren’t nearly the angry, drunk, down-on-her-luck, loser ex-superhero, looking out for herself bitch I was led to believe.” She looks surprised, and if I were here I would’ve retorted with “I’m still pretty drunk” but she doesn’t, oh well. Zoumas then tells her to sell the Captain America tape for the fortune that it’s worth. She indignantly asks him why she was tricked into making the tape in the first place. He counters by telling her he could either sell it or give it to the cops to clear her name from the murder charges. Jones, if she’s understanding correctly, infers that this woman was murdered so that Jones had a reason to get rid of the tape. Zoumas can see she’s still confused, so he asks her straight up what she wants from him. “The truth,” Jones says, “You’ve done something terrible and I want you to confess.” OR ELSE WHAT?! Oh yeah, the super strength power thing, I guess she could squeeze his nuts until they popped like a little bag of Cheetos.

Zoumas, though, has nothing to confess. He didn’t murder anyone. He didn’t hire her for anything. And tricking her into making the tape? Well, she’d have to show the tape to someone as evidence, now, wouldn’t she? He’s slurping up this delicious irony like so much irony honey! From the irony bees. So it’s a stalemate.

Then, he launches into his reasons for doing everything that he did: the president owes Zoumas for getting to where he is today with his help. And, according to Zoumas, he forgot this along the way. And he hates that. Wah wah wah. He calls Captain America a douchebag who is essentially just government property, and he wanted to use the reveal of his identity to bring down the president. Zoumas goes on to explain that all this shit with the politicians, the scandals and the dirt, it all gets brought to the public’s attention by people with money. And these people with money spend a lot of their money to make sure the scandals and the dirt get revealed to the public “by accident”, even if that means getting people like Jessica Jones involved fourth- or fifth-hand. You dig?

Zoumas tells her again, kindly, to just sell the tape and take the money. Jones says she would never do that. So Zoumas tells her again, kindly, to sell the tape because if he finds out she either destroyed it or she dropped his name about this to anyone, he’ll ruin her and then kill her. You dig?

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

So that’s a NO to the bullet in the butthole, then?

Jones starts freaking out just a tad as Zoumas walks away to play through on the course. She gets a phone call by a guy named Clay Quartermain who tells her to turn around and walk away immediately, which, I’d say, isn’t much help at the moment. He informs her that S.H.I.E.L.D. has had a bug on her since she showed up at the crime scene, and they just got the whole conversation between her and Zoumas. A swarm of helicopters emerges, and Zoumas’ crew tries to shoot their guns at them while Quartermain insists that Jones gets far away. He tells her “If you had taken the job with us at S.H.I.E.L.D. none of this would have ever happened to you. But you never listened to me, not once.” Jessica Jones is such a woman, never listening to the man! How dare she, ugh, gross, awful. This Quartermain guy sounds like a real winner.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Crunch Crunch, Little Bug

Back at her apartment, Jones is watching a Keaton concession speech as she’s rooting through her clothes looking for the bug. “Clay, if you’re listening, thank you and fuck you” she says after finding it and before crushing it between her fingers. Soon, there’s a knock at the door.

“HI, I’M CHRIS EVANS!” says the man at the door “I PLAY STEVE ROGERS, AKA CAPTAIN AMERICA! YOU KNOW, FROM THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE MOVIES? CAN I COME IN?!” He asks her for the tape, which she proffers to him without hesitation. Captain Chris Steve Evans Rogers America is surprised that she didn’t hand it in to the authorities, and Jones tells him that it never even occurred to her to do so in the first place.

He finally sort of recognizes her as an old member of the Avengers, but apologizes for his time-travel-related memory lapses. They share an awkward pause. Jones apologizes that the woman died. Chris Evans says “haha, uh, yeah, uh, that sucks doesn’t it? Heh? Man…” He then asks her why she quit superheroing, and she gets annoyed, and he gets pushy about it, so she finally answers the question. “Because it became very clear that I could never be you” she says earnestly without a hint of Krysten Ritter sarcasm. And she didn’t mean Chris Evans Rogers Mr. America specifically, no, she meant the whole dang gang. She says she didn’t have what it took. She didn’t have the drive to be a good person all the time. Roger Evans ‘Merica tells her that, out of the millions of people he has met, he can think of three people, TOPS, that would have handled this situation the way she had.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #5

Nothing like a rousing compliment from Captain America himself. Let’s see here…*squints*…”that’s the stuff”. Wow. Yeah.

He thanks her, and tells her to call Carol Danvers if she ever reconsiders joining the team again.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed this immensely as a story with a beginning, a middle, an end, with excellent pacing, suspenseful moments, real emotional tension, high-stakes situations, and sorta realistic dialogue. I enjoyed this immensely as a character study of an extremely flawed, extremely human individual with extremely human motivations, hesitations, insecurities, and hangups.

But all this drama over Captain America’s secret identity? Give me a break, he can go fuck himself!

Done with Alias for now! Gonna circle back to it eventually, but the Matt Murdock stuff intrigued me so I’m going to give Daredevil a shot next on the Marvel side of things. I hear that he can’t SEE! LOL!


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Andrew Hung, Blanck Mass, and Perturbator

Halloween is right around the corner! I don’t have anything particularly spoo0oO00Oo0oo0o0oky today, but synthesizer-drenched music definitely reminds me of Halloween, so here’s three of such ilk: Andrew Hung (one half of the experimental drone band Fuck Buttons), Blanck Mass (the other half of the experimental drone band Fuck Buttons), and Perturbator (because Fuck Buttons didn’t put out an album proper this year! Or else it would have been Fuck Buttons).

I miss Fuck Buttons.

Andrew Hung – Devastations
(June 18, 2021)

Andrew Hung - Devastations

Andrew Hung’s chief influence is Aphex Twin, but Hung’s solo output strays from the chaotic electronics or the placid ambience of Richard David James’ usual trademarks. Devastations is album full of dance rhythms, complex pop hooks, warm synthesized bleeps and bloops, and emotive expression in every way. It’s definitely not Aphex Twin, but it’s just as colorful.

“Battle”, the first track, feels like familiar territory for a Fuck Buttons fan. It’s a mellow electronic groove with driving forward momentum. Distorted high-pitched vocals makes me think of the band Battles’ early work, but maybe that’s just because the name of the track put it in my head? After “Battle”, the music shifts to a cheesy ’80s synth dance number with “Promises” and I find out that Hung’s British vocals match the music perfectly. He clearly has an affinity for the retro-future, channeling his inner Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, or even James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem.

Each successive track brings with it a facet of Hung’s individuality. It’s clear that this is a very personal record for him, and Hung’s knack for bringing the human aspect out of the cold, alienating characteristics inherent in synthesizer-laden electronica is welcoming. Take “Colour”, which keeps things moving with an oompah accordion groove and shuffling drums. There’s no way that’s a real accordion, right? But it sounds like a real accordion! It’s warm and immersive, like a hot tub. So I’m happy. My favorite is “Space”. Totally schmaltzy lyrics (“Perfection exists in space/That’s why we’re reaching for the staaars!“), but I like the way he belts it out like he really means it. If this were a lyric in a neo-progressive album, it would godawful garbage! Here it works wonders, because Andrew Hung comes across as someone who is remarkably in-tune with himself as a person and himself as an artist, but without an ego or a misguided sense of what makes the music actually resonate in the first place. A great combination!

Anyway, this has all the trappings of an indie rock record from a bygone era. A timeless effort. Bravo. I love it.

Early Verdict:

Blanck Mass – In Ferneaux
(February 25, 2021)

Blanck Mass - In Ferneaux

Well, it appears that Andrew Hung has all the pop-sensibility in the Fuck Buttons project, not that I’m complaining about that, necessarily. It’s just that, knowing how Hung and Benjamin John Power work together and what can come from it, an album like In Ferneaux comes across to me as sparse and unengaging. Admittedly, his fifth album as Blanck Mass is my first encounter with Power’s solo work, so Fuck Buttons is my only frame of reference for it at the moment. Comprising two large vinyl side-length collages of experimental drones, noise, and, occasionally, music, In Ferneaux is a challenging listen by anyone’s standards.

Things start off positively with a very Rubycon/Ricochet-era Tangerine Dream synth krautrock exercise that builds into an explosion of bombasic power-synths about 4:30 into “Phase I”. It last about a minute before returning to the original theme, and at this point, we’re already past our peak. The experimental minimalism that follows isn’t particularly compelling; for a couple more minutes it sounds like someone is putting away silverware near a crackling fire during a thunderstorm. Then, if you can believe it, this fades into something that’s even less interesting with a stagnant drone that goes on absolutely far too long. This morphs into a hazy, breathy, optimistic electronic hum that wouldn’t sound out of place during the heartfelt denouement of an ’80s family movie. Then more noise. And that’s “Phase I”.

The transition to “Phase II” is seamless, making the entire record one large single piece. Here, the beginning presents over three minutes of a monologue sample over more electronic droning that takes a while to turn into more flat-out noise and static. It sounds like Merzbow fucked an amplifier while slapping around a Van der Graaff generator before nutting (to use the most flowery language I can muster under the circumstances). Finally, at long last, something somewhat entertaining happens just before the 11-minute mark: yelpin’ and whoopin’ under some loud sticks-on-the-drum’s-edge percussion…but even that turns into more blistering, static-y pandemonium before long. Only in the last few minutes does some melodious, subtley apocalyptic piano break the tension before it’s over.

But really, what tension? Albums like In Ferneaux are frustrating for me because it’s not ambient enough to serve as background music, but it’s not dynamic enough for a full-attention listening experience, let alone multiple full-attention listening experiences. I don’t know what to do with it. It feels like post-rock without any real moments of catharsis or emotional resonance. Maybe more listens are in order…someday.

Early Verdict:

Perturbator – Lustful Sacraments
(May 28, 2021)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

And then there’s Perturbator, which is only on this list because Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power haven’t made a Fuck Buttons record in over eight years. SIGH! So here’s an electronic project by James Kent out of Paris, whose background involved playing guitar in several black metal bands and draws his main inspiration from gross cyberpunk anime movies! So that’s unique!

But, more importantly, Perturbator’s Lustful Sacraments is on this list because this type of minimal wave (specifically, darksynth) sounds about as close to Halloween music that you’re going to get without listening to actual Halloween music! And believe you me, Lustful Sacraments is quite a graveyard smash in its own right. It surprises me that this kind of album would get released in May. Who listens to this in May?

I often relegate music like Perturbator’s to the background. After all, this stuff is usually not too dense and demanding of a close listen. Akin to ’90s video game MIDI soundtracks, it’s the perfect mood music for reading or writing. Lustful Sacraments is the first time I gave a darksynth record my undivided attention, and I was surprised at how varied and deceptively intricate the arrangements sounded to my ears. You can do wonders with keyboards and synthesizers; occasionally the drums and the bass effects sound downright organic, son.

A lot of this album leans toward gothic rock/post-punk with some pop elements. “Secret Devotion”, my favorite, has Bauhaus-ian vocals over jaunty John Carpenter dance beats. It could a Eurythmics song.

But, the nagging feeling that this is a novelty still persists. It’s hard to take this all in and extract lasting appeal from it. And, forgive me if you can, but I’m not going to listen to this anymore once Halloween is behind me. Sorry! I’ll bust it out again in October 2022.

Early Verdict:


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Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “Rocket Song” / “Baby Steps”

* Part 5 of 8 of the Superman and the Men of Steel storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “Rocket Song” • “Baby Stepsl”! AGAIN, two stories for the price of one! In the previous installment, shit really went down. There was a battle with robots that ended with most of Metropolis disappearing into some alternate-reality alien preservation containment thing, and then I was told at the end of the story that we wouldn’t even continue with that plot until Issue #7!

So now we are apparently running in a hamster wheel for two issues, so go make yourself a snack or something.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5 [March, 2012]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“Rocket Song”

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Cover art analysis suggests that we will possibly be doing a Superman origin story at this point. At first I was going to say “uhhhhhh, why the fuck now?”, but then they did already do a flashback in Issue #3 with Krypton going kaputt and all, so it seems semi-appropriate. I guess. Harumph.

Krypton is crumbling like so much coffee cake! Superman’s parents are sad that their favorite planet of all time is facing destruction right before their very eyes. Jor-El and Lara, that’s their names, I think I knew that already. They wrap baby Superman in Jor-El’s father’s cloak, which looks like Superman’s cape. Seriously, bear with me here, I don’t know SHIT about Superman except that I really like the Superman roller coaster at Six Flags, so go to hell. Jor-El declares that they can all still get out of this alive if they escape into the Phantom Zone, which sounds like a Sonic the Hedgehog level. “This ghostly anti-universe I discovered was made a jail for Krypton’s super-criminals, but it’s our only way out.” Jor-El says in a fit of heavy-handed exposition dialogue so that dumbasses like me don’t make any more Sonic the Hedgehog jokes. As he calibrates the Phantom Zone Sega Genesis machine for teleportation, or whatever, Lara senses something weird: strange figures emerging, awful voices telebanding into her mind. You know, the usual stuff. A group of eight menacing figures talk to them through the Stargate portal thing, letting them know that they’ve been waiting for Jor-El and his family. “Do you hope to join us in this bodiless limbo where you left us to ROT?” one says. Yeesh, awkward. As the guy reaches through the portal to them (Jor-El, shocked, declares this to be impossible), the family dog bites the guy’s arm and then gets pulled into the portal, shattering it upon entry.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Something’s going haywire with the Stargate! Close the iris! The Goa’uld are fiesty!

“Oh man we’re so fucked now” Jor-El sort of tries not to think. They both go to Plan B: saving the baby instead. A tiny little ship that can only hold a tiny little baby (or an animal test subject, but they never tried that); a tiny little ship that Jor-El and Lara built together. While fucking! Ew! Tom, that’s immature! They decide to send Baby Superman alone in this ship Moses-style down some Krypton space version of the Nile River. They tell the ship to go to a planet with the following criteria: a) yellow sun, and b) weak gravity so it looks like he can fly. I see that Kryptonians have some relatable priorities here. Meanwhile, Baby Superman makes fat alien baby sounds like “kaaa” and “nna”. The ship flies away from the krumbling koffee kake Krypton! ROCKET MAN, BURNING OUT HIS FUSE UP HERE ALONE!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Surprise! The miracle of life! The stork has new methods of delivery these days.

A bunch of really stupid poetic nonsense frames the scene of Baby Superman escaping as the planet explodes. “The Blinding Gulfs of Superspace. Of Un-Time. Exquisite Calculation. The Last Son of Krypton Dreams.” None of this means A HILL OF KRYPONITE BEANS to me. The ship eventually, and by eventually I mean “like 5 panels later”, meaning it probably only took ten minutes, finds Earth. It decides to crash land in the middle of nowhere Kansas at four trillion miles per hour. In some shitty truck on the road, a couple is shivering in the cold and talking about “Bessie’s poor deformed calf” and “I lost muh baby” before they see this flaming fireball suddenly land in a field in front of them. They approach the flaming alien ship and discover no scratch whatsoever on the ship or on Baby Superman. Baby Superman says “DAB!” so the couple think he’s Russian. They scoop him up and drive away with him. At the crash site, the ship analyzes Earth and determines it to be a primitive planet of “apes with atom bombs”. “Their imbecilic machines lack voices, opinions or self-direction.” You got that right! Fuck Earth! As helicopters approach the ship, it turns on its own silent mode. I wish the ol’ ball and chain could do that! HAHAHAHAH! AHAHAHAHAH!!!! HRWH@

We see the military attempt to test the ship by shooting their fucking guns at it a whole lot. We also see Jonathan Kent, the male individual of the hick couple, drive back to the crash site to show the military that he “reckons I found a spaceman.” It’s actually Bessie’s poor deformed calf! Puttin’ those birth defects to good use.

The timeline suddenly jumps to the future, I guess, where Adult Superman enters a room in a military facility where the ship is being kept. “Silent Mode Off. Many Greetings! He Has Returned.” declares the ship to no one in particular. The ship keeps verbally sucking Superman’s dick while Superman pets the ship and promises it that he’ll come back for it.

Beginning to think Superman’s fuckin’ the ship.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

GREETINGS, STAR CHILD. YOU MUST BE PAUL STANLEY. PUT ON YOUR KISS MAKEUP, IT’S TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL ALL NIGHT. AND, TO A LESSER EXTENT, PARTY EVERY DAY.

We jump in the timeline again back to the bridge where robots and men in steel suits were fighting Superman while Lex Luthor cavorted around in an army truck. The ship is narrating something about the collector of worlds and upgrading Level 3 planets to Level 4 planets and other such hoser shenanigans. And then we jump to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, where some entities time traveled to a point before Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was able to protect itself against time travelers. Well, why didn’t you fucking think of THAT you fucking idiot, Superman? No shit, of course time travelers could take advantage of that easily. Jesus Christ.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

These spiky blue lights have been biding their time for years, planning their spiky blue revenge!

So I’ve lost the thread of the story at this point. In the Fortress of Solitude Where Superman Jerks Off, off-panel humans and spiky blue lights are talking about Kryptonian sunstones and green Kryptonite, which is the flavor of Kryptonite that can harm Superman because, I don’t know, he hates lime jello. As they keep blah-blah-blahing about Synthi-K and “joining the tesseract”, they get engulfed by some purple thing. Then something happens. Then another thing happens. Then someone says “Not again! The ultimate break-in! And we couldn’t do anything to prevent it!” Then the ship narrates obliquely again. Then something happens. Then someone says something about shields being put up around events that’s even beyond the time trapper. Ugh. Then the green Kryptonite engine disappears! Ok! And now it’s in the hands of the Anti-Superman Army! Sure! Then the ship moans and wails about needing the green Kryptonite engine! Fine! And if the ship doesn’t get it, the ship is doomed and so is Earth! Groovy!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Keywords only, or Google Analytics will be confused! Leev soopa-zerOs 2 Me? What the FUCK is that? That’s garbage!

Fucking fuck this, man. It makes me wish I was reading more Alias instead; Jessica Jones never talks about “joining the tesseract” unless it’s a euphemism for boning Luke “Nic” Cage. I have a headache now and I don’t care.

“Baby Steps”
Written by: Sholly Fisch

We’re not done yet! There’s another story to cleanse the palate of the awful taste Grant Morrison unloaded into all of our mouths! Sholly Fisch is going to bring us inside the backstory of hick couple Jonathan Kent and Martha Clark that no one asked for!

They get married.

After the marriage Jonathan Kent’s like “I’m glad that you enjoyed marrying me because now we’re married.” I mean, that’s very close to what he actually says, goddamn. Before they even drive away in their “Just Married” pickup truck with the dang cans rattling behind them, they talk about having kids. It’s like they just met or something. These people seem boring.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

Nice foreshadowing from the Dull Duo.

Fast forward to the couple’s well-kept little hick house. Martha peed on her 900th pregnancy test and got negative results, and she’s crying for some reason I can’t fathom! Martha begins to think that conception will be impossible at this point after trying for two years, but Jonny-Boy says “NONSENSE, POOPYPANTS” and assures her that they’ll go see a doctor.

The bowtied, cross-eyed doctor has bad news: BOTH of them are sterile! LOL! “What about them test tube babies…” Jonathan drawls, but the doc tells them they can’t fucking afford that shit and it doesn’t work most of the time anyway! LOOL! They start hormone therapy, but a year later there’s still nothing! LOOOL! Then they go to the church where they got married to ask the priest why God is punishing them! LOOOOL! He quotes a bible verse at them! That’s helpful! Lmao!

Then he tells some bible story about some old broad who had a kid at 90 years old, and it livens their spirits. The priest assures them that God has a plan for everyone yadda yadda yadda. Satisfied, they start saving up for in vitro fertilization.

Now they’re at the adoption services office pleading their case. By now Martha miscarried her very expensive test tube baby, but the agent warns them that the adoption process is very long and very expensive as well. Unphased, the couple stays optimistic and plans to start saving up again. As they discuss this in the truck, Jonathan proposes selling the farm to get the money. “ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID YOU DUMB HILLBILLY” Martha kind of says to him, to which he responds “yeah” with a big smile on his face.

Unbeknownst to them, Baby Superman is floating near the Earth’s atmosphere.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5

HERE I COME TO RUIN YOUR LIFE! YEE-HAW!

Final Thoughts

I think Jonathan and Martha are both dumb and they should’ve given up a long time ago! I think Superman is dumb for crashing-landing on Earth in the first place, there must be trillions of better planets that shitty ol’ Earth! Other than that I have no fucking goddamn idea what the hell is going on and I’m looking forward to trying to keep track of all these characters named things like “Vzxxyx” and “Mtlvtl”.


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