Breath easy internet, I have returned to my blogging post. Over the last week and a half I’ve been journeying up the Pacific Coast with Bear Hunter . As it turns out, when I try and write on my laptop while in the van I start to puke all over my band mates — hence, my absence from Synthesis Blog. Over the next few days I will be recounting my harrowing journey (in between fascinating posts about pop stars getting busted for drugs, children with weird growths on their bodies and general paranoid-paranormal fodder). Get ready, dear readers. Get your asses ready.

This has to be the cutest lil’ animal on the planet.  Sure, its just a regular rabbit, but the damn thing only weighs 48 grams.  That means that most of our Synthesis Youtube subscribers smoke more than it’s body weight in weed on any given night of the week.  Awwwww.

I can kinda feel The Meltdowns on several levels. The first track that came up, “Tonight We Dine,” reminds me of what Michael Jackson would put out if he were raised on the Papa Roach cover of his own “Smooth Criminal,” but then decided about a year and a half later that he was “too indie” for Papa Roach anymore, sold off his Ibanez 7-string and downloaded every Gang of Four track he could find on SoulSeek. Unfortunately, he still ended up with a shipwrecked career all because he fondled a little boy’s penis. But now he writes frenetic, dancy-y, house party, dancing on the countertops punk and gets MAD GASH and free PBRs everywhere he goes. That’s just reason #1.

Also, I would like to point out that by swapping letters in the band name “Gang of Four,” you get “Fang of Gore”; and when you type “Fang of Gore” into a google image search, you get this:

That’s just reason #2 why you should click on The Meltdowns’ MySpace Page, befriend them, and then let them crash at your house when they’re on tour.

The Meltdowns’ debut EP, “No Authority, Direction, or Control” was released in January and should be purchased HERE. It sounds like demon dance party dogs tearing through a sweaty basement club and nipping at the heels of rad chicks with ugly-ass haircuts.

Don’t worry: Unlike both the real and the alternate reality Michael Jacksons, The MELTDOWNS WILL NOT TOUCH YOUR PENIS. (maybe.)

The Meltdowns have East Coast shows coming up. You can find them after the jump.
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I am trying not to just phone this one in, because this band hails from Quebec, and if there’s anything more fierce and brutal than a Canadian, it’s a French-Canadian, and I don’t want these guys to track me down and beat the living end out of me. Luckily, by the sound of their jangle-pop, I think I can take them. Fuck it, I’m just phoning this one in then.

After The Weather has some pretty definite Britpop/psychedelic and frenetic Pacific Northwest influences, a not unpleasantly awkward-voiced singer and a shit ton of energy. I’m hearing Television vs. Hot Hot Heat, debating over whether The Arcade Fire holds up after repeated listens. Their name that is more clever upon further inspection (i.e., reading their bio): “After The Weather is a phrase that has no meaning without the context of television news.” Nice.

I would totally do recreational drugs with these guys if one of my bands played a show with them. Then we’d talk about how shamefully underrated the Stone Roses were, how the newer Digitech Whammy pedals aren’t as cool as the old ones, then we’d go out and try and pick up girls and probably fail. Shit, when you all coming to California? I just mapped out our evening.

Instrumentation
Matthew Hills - Vocals, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Rob Helsten - Bass Guitar, Vocals
Trevor Zaavedra - Drums

Discography
Self Titled EP - After The Weather

You can check them out on their space HERE.

And if you’re in the Montreal, Quebec area, check them out live:

Apr 5 2008 10:00P Bistro de Paris Montréal, Quebec
Apr 18 2008 8:00P Barfly Montreal, Quebec
May 2 2008 8:00P 3 Minots Montreal, Quebec
May 9 2008 9:00P Pub Saint-Ciboire Montreal, Quebec
May 20 2008 8:00P Bar St. Laurent 2 Montreal, Quebec
Jun 15 2008 8:00P Café Chaos Montreal, Quebec

If you live in Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin, I want to wish you a happy Cesar Chavez day. For the rest of you, it’s time for some more education. Cesar Chavez was an American of Mexican descent who organized farm workers in order for them to earn better wages and work less hellacious hours. He, along with Dolores Huerta started what was to become the United Farm Workers.

Chavez took the lead of civil rights leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and utilized non-violent means to achieve direct results.

From the Wiki:

In 1965, Filipino American farm workers initiated the Delano grape strike on September 8, 1965, to protest in favor of higher wages. Six months later, Chávez and the NFWA led a strike of California grape pickers on the historic farmworkers march from Delano to the California state capitol in Sacramento for similar goals. In addition to the strike, the UFW encouraged all Americans to boycott table grapes as a show of support. The strike lasted five years and attracted national attention. When the U.S. Senate Subcommittee looked into the situation, Robert Kennedy gave Chávez his total support. This effort resulted in the first major labor victory for U.S. farm workers.

What might strike some as odd, Chavez was against illegal immigration, and for limiting legal immigration.

The UFW during Chávez’s tenure was committed to restricting immigration. César Chávez and Dolores Huerta fought a federal law that prohibited hiring illegal immigrants in 1973…

In 1969, Chávez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valleys to the border of Mexico to protest growers’ use of illegal immigrants as strikebreakers. Joining him on the march were both Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale.[3] In its early years, Chávez and the UFW went so far as to report illegal aliens who served as strikebreaking replacement workers, as well as those who refused to unionize, to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Personally, I worked phone donations on behalf of the UFW as one of my first jobs out of High School. I then quickly discovered that, even when raising money for a good organization, telemarketing is the Devil’s instrument, and sales in general was not for me.

Here in Chico, the students often take Cesar Chavez day as a drinking holiday, and I’m pretty much against it. I mean, drinking on Cesar Chavez day is ten times better than picking grapes for 16 hours, but it still rubs me as wrong. I mean, that’s why we invented Groundhog Day.

Since you may have forgotten to mark your calendars, we’re hitting you with this info today. Tomorrow, October 16th, is National Boss Day. And while I initially thought, “Shit yeah, a day devoted to Springsteen? About frickin’ time!” I quickly realized that tomorrow is actually about this:

Wikipedia says that Boss Day is a time honored tradition. It dates back to 1958 when Patricia Bays Haroski registered October 16th as a thank you to her loving boss…who also happened to be her father. However, the entry also notes that Boss Day is widely criticized as a Hallmark Holiday, and just another way to kiss ass. And since my boss told us that we should do more blogging today, I guess this is my way of doing both. Happy Boss Day, Bill.