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I will never be able to masturbate again. THANKS INTERNET!

As was the case when a video of a US Marine throwing a puppy off a cliff in Iraq sparked widespread outrage, death threats and maudlin displays of outrage across the internet, the news that Costa Rican artist Guillermo “Habacuc” Vargas had starved a dog named Nativity to death as part of an art exhibit has been making the rounds on Myspace bulletins and well over a million people have signed internet petitions calling for his banishment to the Chateau D’iff of the art world. First off, the story is almost certainly just another performance art hoax, like the recent Yale abortion art. But even if it were real, the whole point of Vargas’ as he himself explained was to “illustrate the point that…in my home city of San Jose, Costa Rica, tens of thousands of stray dogs starve and die of illness each year in the streets and no one pays them a second thought. Now, if you publicly display one of these starving creatures, such as the case with Nativity, it creates a backlash that brings out a big of hypocrisy in all of us. Nativity was a very sick creature and would have died in the streets anyway.”  If illustrating the lazy hypocrisy of so-called “animal lovers” was the goal of the installation, I’d say Vargas succeeded in spades. All the people signing these petitions and expending their energy making Guillermo “Habacuc” Vargas a famous performance artist in the name of “animal welfare” should take a good long look in the mirror and realize that millions of cats and dogs are euthanized in this country each year for no other reason than people don’t care enough about them to pay for them to live. Likewise, many millions more are tortured to death every single day to provide our cheap, overly meat-laden diets and yet most people do nothing. I guess its a lot easier to sign some fucking stupid petition than to actually do anything real to back up your supposed convictions. Great job everyone! Way to make a difference. OBAMA ‘08!

Fort Collins-based punk legends ALL have just announced plans to reunite for this year’s Riot Festival in Chicago, IL, being held October 10-12.

News alone of an ALL reunion is enough to bring their seething fanbase to its collective knees, even without the added bonus that the reunion is with none other than former ALL frontman and current bandleader for the Steaming Beast, Scott Reynolds (whose new endeavors you can read about very soon on synthesis.net)!

Message from Scott Reynolds regarding the reunion:

Stephen is going to jump a motorcycle over 10 flaming school buses, then save all the children inside them before they burn up! Bill is going to levitate, then disappear, then reappear on Karl’s shoulders who will be riding a unicycle on a tightrope made from dental floss suspended 100 ft. above the stage. And I’m going to give one lucky audience member a makeover that will take 10 years off his/her appearance! So we better start practicing!! Everybody should come because it’s going to rock sooo hard.

Here’s why you should be stoked:

So our music inbox has been stuffed with bands, may of whom are now overdue for a writeup, or at least a semi-friendly rejection letter. I hate being behind on things, so in an effort to get through the clutter, here’s a great big super-post of about seven or eight band of the day bands.

Here’s the deal. Each and every one of these bands deserves my undivided attention to truly get a good idea of what they are about. But they’re not going to get that. Nope, I will be listening to them for the exact amount of time it takes me to write a paragraph about them. Some will fare better than others. Some will be treated unjustly. Some will not even get a chance. Life’s tough, time’s short, and I got other blogs to blog. On today’s Band of the Day Menu:
James Sudakow
Rider Jones
Margot Blanche
Dan Weintraub
Lansdale Station
Jump Back Heart Attack!
Front Row for the Meltdown
Lawrence Blatt

James Sudakow
A little electronic with heavy bass, fronted by an electric violin. I always though electric violins were the shit:

Yeah Brad Neely, you’re right. Life DOES rule, especially if you’re James Sudakow and play heavy instrumental electric violin electronica.

See? Totally! You know those people who bought the Tool String Quartet album? I bet they would rock Mr. Sudakow while playing World of Warcraft and fucking rule over all the other internerds. They’d be like head of the Theif’s Guild or whatever. Me? I can’t get into this. It’s like Yanni with a distortion pedal and drummer who can’t get enough Taiko. NEXT

Rider Jones

Well, I see from their MySpace page’s headline that Rider Jones is no more. “RIDER JONES 2005 - 2008 R.I.P” I assume that they are already done…either that, or by the end of the year they will be done. Or maybe they just changed their web site and are terrible at conveying that info.

Oh, the perils of being in a band. NOW we get to reviewing you and your band is already broken up. If only I had gotten to them back in January, perhaps I could have provided the shot in the arm they needed to continue. Oh well. Too bad, because they don’t sound half bad. They don’t sound half good either. Wussy acoustic finger-picking pop does nothing for me, but at least their lyrics aren’t as cliche as the music… Oh wait, never mind…they just sang “star light, star bright, first star i see tonight…” without a hint of irony. Yeesh. Get me out of here. NEXT

I will praise the rest of the bands’ deeds or fuck their shit up after the JUMP: it will be worth it, dear reader. Trust me. Would I lie to you? (more…)

Designed by Erik De Nijs, these jeans have a built in keyboard, back pocket for your mouse, speakers on the knees, and a joystick controller located just behind the front zipper. Um… cool? Well, I like the circuitry stitching…

click them thumbnails

A new study by the always reliable Shuttleworth Research Center found that the majority of male roommates ages 18-24 got wasted off their asses the previous evening. I do believe the majority of this research was conducted in Chico, CA.