“America’s toughest sheriff,” Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, AZ, has long been a controversial figure in law enforcement. Arpaio’s dessert reign has drawn much national attention and criticism for his hard line stance on the rights of inmates. He’s also made news within the past year for his public appeal to have Paris Hilton serve the remainder of her DUI sentence in Maricopa.

With this weekend’s Super Bowl headed towards his jurisdiction, “Nicklebag” Joe (a D.E.A. nickname bestowed upon Arpaio for his litany of small-time arrests) has come out with antagonistic comments towards the celebrity fanfare, most specificly quarterbacks Tom Brady and Eli Manning. Arpaio boasts that he has a “pair of pink underwear, a bologna sandwich and a spot in a dirty old prison tent for Tom Brady, Eli Manning or, most certainly, Paris Hilton.”

GIVE ME A BREAK. Tom Brady? Eli fucking Manning? These are pretty boys, clean as they come, who would never, ever find their way into the trouble with the law, let alone before the Super Bowl. Arpaio brings three words to mind: ludicrous, shameless and malicious. When checking Nicklebag’s history of violation towards constitutional rights, I suppose though that it is not surprising such comments would be made. This is a man that dreams of having Maricopa County be home to the largest collection of inmates in the country. This is the type of heavy handed law and order that fosters every type of brutal stereotype hung on cops across the nation. Joe Arpaio is the kind of guy that takes great pleasure in the pain of others.

Here is a website with much information, dedicated to Joe Arpaio’s removal from law enforcement.

http://www.wtf.org/

this will most certainly leave you disappointed. Until you see the “WTF Community board.” Then you’ll just feel slightly let down.

Sometimes you just phone it in.

The other night I cruised down to LaSalle’s, a local shithole that from time to time hosts badical rock shows, to check out my friends, the always heavy-as-fuck Armed For Apocalypse. Opening things up were a band that no one seemed to know anything about, some yahoos named Trigger Renegade from Santa Cruz. Needless to say, expectations were low. But then the band started humping their gear onto stage, and I began to take notice. Bogner half-stack? Double Bass drumkit with a fucking 236″ single rack tom? White curly guitar cords??!! Suddenly the scent of rock began to fill the air. Adding to this presentiment was the fact that the members of the band all looked the part of late-70s rock gods, with long flowing locks, tight shirts, and the requisite rock snarl. But could their sound match their image?? COULD THEY COME THROUGH WITH THE ROCK????!!

The answer was a resounding yes. From the first harmonized guitar solo it was apparent that Trigger Renegade were not, and weren’t going to be, fucking around. The band was like The Sword kicking it with Ted Nugent playing Iron Maiden covers with Rick Neilsen’s guitar collection. Check them out on Myspace and if you like what you hear, buy their fucking CD from CD Baby so they have enough gas money to come back to Chico and rock Saddam Hussein’s ass back to fucking Russia!!1oneone!

Sadly, I missed Iceage Cobra’s last Chico, CA, show by mere seconds. Stepping into Off Limits as their last chord rang out, I got the feeling I had just missed a slice of damn good rock ‘n’ roll. Listening to their album, Brilliant Ideas from Amazing People, only confirmed it. With a twist of AC/DC’s machismo riffing, T. Rex’s glamtastic sexuality, a devilish sense of humor and a full arsenal of sweet licks (and now featuring bassist Ben Harwood, formerly of Vindaloo), they recently brought their show back to Chico. Synthesis flipped through the Iceage Cobra photo album with frontman Jordan West and asked him about some of his signature moves.

Behind the Head
Remember the first time you did that move?
It was probably five years ago when I was 19, in my old band.

The first time you did it was it spontaneous, or was it planned?
I totally remember the first time because I had to practice it in my bedroom, and the first time I did it [live] I was in a high school talent show with a one-off band that we had just for that show. Actually, there was a photo of it in my high school yearbook.

How much harder is it to play without being able to see the frets?
Surprisingly it wasn’t that much harder. I couldn’t believe it. I thought that would be the hardest thing in the world. Taking the guitar back down from behind the head is the hard part of that move.

Crowd Surfing
I imagine this kind of thing happens more at hometown shows. Have you ever successfully done a stage dive outside of Seattle?
I think I did it at this show at Denton, TX, where we played in this guy’s kitchen. There were like 25 people crammed into this kitchen, and I couldn’t believe we were playing in a guy’s kitchen in the first place. A lot of people have house shows but I thought that was such a weird room to do it in. So there’s basically enough room for the band on the floor and maybe 10 other people, so the rest of the crowd was standing on kitchen counters, the stove, the fridge, our speaker cabinets…it was really cool, it was two tiers of audience in this kitchen. That might be my favorite show ever. They hoisted me up and surfed me at that show.

Have you ever been dropped?
No. That would hurt. People like me so that’s never happened.

Neck Bridge
I’ve seen plenty of guitarists play on their back, but you’re actually lifting yourself up off the ground using only your neck muscles.
Yeah. I remember, the drummer Metch [Brasch] and I were in wrestling at the same middle school. That’s a neck bridge, we had to practice that — it’s wrestling, you’re trying to keep your shoulders up the whole time, so if somebody has you on your back you can bridge with your neck that way. It’s a defensive maneuver in wrestling, so that’s what inspired
that move.

But that’s an offensive maneuver in rock ‘n’ roll. Very proactive. So high school wrestling actually came in handy for you.
Jr. high, yeah, that was long ago. The drummer and I have known each other since middle school.

The Mouthful
The alternate version of the neck bridge is pretty awesome. The microphone is actually in your mouth while you’re doing that.
There are so many great moves that I see other people doing, but what was so cool was they were all just lead singers doing them, not dudes who are playing instruments. Like I saw video footage of Spencer Moody from the Murder City Devils doing that and I was like, “oh, that’s cool.” I did that while guitar-in-hand, so I had to just grab the mic and yank it off the mic stand with my mouth and then roll around on the ground.

That’s some serious teeth-chipping hazard there.
Yeah, I’m surprised, there’s been a lot of danger but nothing has happened so far. I think the biggest danger is when the stage is not well lit, or too bight, and you can’t really see the microphone, or you’re rocking out and disoriented and then you go up to sing your part and you open up your mouth and you’re too close and you smack your mouth on the mic.

High Kick

That’s probably the highest high kick I’ve ever seen. That’s well above your head.
[Pauses] Thank you! [laughs] I took karate lessons as a kid and the flexibility just sort of stuck with me, I don’t know why.

When does the high kick happen?
Well, it’s usually in this one part of one of our songs called “Death Mobile.” It’s like on the beat, there’s a succession of high kicks, I think I do eight or 16; I can’t remember how many times we do that. There’s another song where we never really planned out how many times we’re going to do a part, it’s sort of a free-time section of the song. Whenever I do the high kick is when we’re gonna change to the next part. Stuff like that. It is sometimes like a signal in the songs to the rest of the band members…

Kinda like James Brown.
Exactly. Exactly like James Brown.

Aftermath
What does it take to get arrested as a rock ‘n’ roller?
That shot was, unfortunately, staged. That was in Ferndale, right outside of Eureka and Arcata in Humboldt County [California]. We were at the radio station and the police officer was friends with the DJ. He was just, like, hanging out and the rest of the band was like, “Hey, you should arrest Jordan, that’d be hilarious. Put the cuffs on him!” He was a good sport and he let us take that picture.

So you’re saying cops are pretty much down with Iceage Cobra?
Sure, yeah, why not? With any luck we’ll piss off The Man and have a great story to tell about it.

I’m going to be perfectly honest here, I haven’t showered in five days, and I stink. I’m usually pretty clean, but there have been a lack of showers so far on this tour. Even if there were a shower somewhere I probably wouldn’t have time to use it. Usually it’s hurry up and wait, but lately it’s been hurry up and hurry some more. I’ve been damn busy now that my workload has doubled, but I’m not complaining, I’m just adjusting. This tour is a different kind of situation. We have an entirely different crew than the last time around, so my time is spent teaching the new guys the routine of everything and trying to remember some things myself. We also have a bus full of people, 13 to be exact, and that is a slightly difficult thing to get used to all in itself. Tonight is the third night of tour, and as of yet, the coldest. It’s around 20 degrees and snowing like crazy here at the infamous Metro in Chicago. I really didn’t get to see much of Nashville or Columbus due to me being busy and tired, and the same will most likely happen again tonight. On top of the previously mentioned excuses, we’re in a slightly ghetto area, about a block away from Wrigley Field, and the only exciting places I’ve seen all day are a Starbucks and a hot dog stand, maybe I’ll get lucky and Steve Albini will come by and want to get a drink and hang out.

Newport Music Hall wall of fame

soundcheck

Meet and greet behind the scenes

Microsoft, realizing that their MSN and Hotmail services have started to look almost cool compared to the absolute garbage provided by overvalued internet dinosaur Yahoo, offered up an unexpected buyout offer of $44.6B this morning, an offer Yahoo said it will study “carefully and promptly. ” The company formed by combining Yahoo and Microsoft will be catered specifically to the 1% of internet users, mainly old people, retards and foreigners who don’t automatically use Google for everything.