HEY ANYBODY UP FOR SOME POST-GRUNGE WARRANT?

I'd been in a bad mood for like 10 years by the time grunge came around, so it felt offensive that bands were suddenly depriving me of gonzo antics and fantastical lyrics about barfing on groupies while having sex with helicopters. Uh you know what I mean: Shit got serious. Feelings, etc. Anyway it's understandable that pop radio whores like Warrant and the newly Vince Neil-less Motley Crue would scramble to kinda shift the emphasis of their outmoded sound. Yep the E word. But this alternative shit was so serious that even Metal bands were all dazed and tentative after the dual concussive blows of The Black Album and Nevermind. Yeah so it took me a minute to see past that to Warrant disavowing themselves fairly well on "The Hole In My Wall" (above) from 1992's Dog Eat Dog. (Remember when that band Dog Eat Dog named their next record Warrant? Good one.) And fuck it, I like "Down Incognito" (omg hilarious video) off Winger's Pull (snicker x10000) album. 

TEGAN + SARA CAN SHAMPOO MY CROTCH

In a very profound sense, annoying hipster junk like the offensive, patronizing, jackassy t-shirt above is responsible for HooM!’s founding and subsequent roaring popularity. Which is to say that HooM! is the petulant, rage-filled bastard child of a true-blue sweaty metal guy and a silly poser chick who thinks Whitesnake is hilarious. Ok Whitesnake is asinine but the point is that my friends and associates and enthralled readers and Metalists of exquisite taste like you owe hipster dorks like Tegan + Sara (nice femullets) a measure of gratitude. Y'know, for rerouting my petty, deafening rants to this forum for the written word. Which is quieter. Thanks uncleaver dorks! Hipsters out of Metal! And stay out!

HipsterWatch: Pitchfork Reviews Opeth's 'Watershed' For Some Reason

You can tell that a music writer is out of his or her comfort zone when a simple CD review begins with a fucking 1000-word thesis on some semi-related shit. Take Shitcago's premiere dickless hipster website Pitchfork, whose Cosmo Lee leads a review of Opeth's new album by waxing theoretical for about seven hours on cool Mastodon-style prog vs. uncool Dream Theater-style prog. Yeah, I get it: Lee's rushing to explain the conspicuous presence of an Opeth review in The Land Of Sam Beam and Bon Iver. Still, that's what we in the biz call a Pretty Thin Angle. Plus, that shit ain't even accurate. Apparently, dude never heard that expression 'To flaunt ignorance is folly.' [Probably cuz I just made it up. Sucker.] 

Anyhow, Lee's centerpiece is an undercooked and porous analogy that Mastodon is to Peter Gabriel-era Genesis as Dream Theater is to '70s-era Rush. Apparently, Lee was in a hurry to get back to beard maintenance since only in the loosest, laziest, lamest sense is this comparison accurate. The breakdown in logic comes when Lee points out that '[h]ipsters love Mastodon, but they won't go near Dream Theater,' since you'd have to be on crack to believe that any Velvet Underground fans were rocking Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in 1974. Is this to say contemporary hipsters have come so far? Wrong! And was 70s Rush so inorganic and cold? Nay!

When the review at last turns to the damn fuckin Opeth album, Lee makes up for all that cack with observations such as this gem: 'Opeth, interestingly, have straddled both prog aesthetics.' Oh! and that 'Watershed is an intriguing exercise in discontinuity.' Whatever the hell that means. 

Here's some advice for you, Cosmo, if that is your real name: Get your hipster face out of Opeth's pants and get back to cultivating that indie chin-mullet. Hipsters Out Of Metal! 

Probably Pitchfork Media Contributing Writer Cosmo Lee

Irony: Hipster Friend or Hipster Foe?

A good place to view hipsters in their native environment is any eatery with decent music. I occasionally indulge in effort-free breakfasts on drowsy Sundays, and therefore am required to stray into either geriatric or hipster territory. One particular Sunday, we're seated at the bar -- traditionally a hipster-free area at the brunch hour, since hipsters require a table to take breakfast over the course of seven hours, 300 cigarettes, and endless blathering -- when my friend was overheard by a bartender (a hipster, natch) dismissing some lame band as "pure hipster bullshit." The sleeve-tattoo/complicated hat/vintage shirt/gross jeans guy enters our conversation with this nugget: "I'm so over hipsters."

I almost fell off the damn stool laughing. But wasn't I embarrassed when it turned out that the bartender wasn't purveying a choice Zing! at all. His use of topical lingo touchstone "I'm so over" was a sure sign of latent hipsterism, and used to decry hipsters no less, giving his statement near-toxic levels of hilarious irony coming from this uncloseted doofus. It was extra-funny that he'd go the extra mile by using dated hipster lingo, as well. But I'll be goddamned: He was sincerely complaining. Like that coke dealer in my neighborhood who called the cops on my roof party. What the shit?

Given the hipster's love of wearing t-shirts featuring bands they don't actually like -- what? you don't really like BulletBoys? oh, the trenchant commentary! -- the hipster has alarmingly little grasp of real, live irony. Perhaps the species is so evolved that only third- and fourth-tier irony registers; it's not enough to wear the BulletBoys shirt, one must actually become a member of BulletBoys to achieve full ir-rection.