Pretentious Record Store Blog

All New Pretentious Record Store Guy Website

This is the new Pretentious Record Store Guy website link.

If you’re like Pretentious Record Store Guy then you’re 5′10″, rail thin, ridiculously good looking and your hair is the elixir from which dreams are made. And since there is only one Pretentious Record Store Guy and this is his website, then you are not him. Your loss.

But you are also a pretentious music fan, an aficionado of the underground, the litmus test by which any band who is anyone will be judged and blogged by before their fist single even makes it to a mall to be sold at Sam Goody and purchased by know-nothings who will only buy whatever Rolling Stone, Spin or A.P. advertisers steer them towards. We are the taste makers that serve up our sacrificial lambs to the mainstream so that they can die and be be resurrected in the temple of rock.

This site is an ongoing affair and will be constantly updated, amended, bushwhacked, anointed, assembled, destroyed and resurrected anew on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. To check out the newest Pretentious Record Store Guy comic simply turn your eyes to your right and continue reading. To read the webcomic about the adventures of a record store clerk who has forgotten more about music than you’ll ever know from the start of the beginning, simply click here on Comics.

For those of you in the know, you know already, but for those mere mortals who are lacking in Indie cred and need to brush up in order to win a few hipster battles, click on the Pretentious Record Store Blog and save yourselves the embarrassment of being the last one to jump on the newest thing’s bandwagon.

Show some love and impress all of your fashionista friends by purchasing your very own Pretentious Record Store Guy t-shirts available in all sizes including Youth Large, Small and Medium.

See what all the rock critics are raving about when you check out the Pretentious Record Store Guy’s Top Five List.

Praise be to Brian Jones!

Praise be to Andrew Wood!

Long live Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and John Lennon!

Long live Rock and Roll!

30 Most Underrated Albums of the Last 10 Years

What do critics know?  Nothing or else they would be in a band making music.  Fuck the critics, especially rock critics.  Most of them are thirty to forty year olds, predominantly male, slighlty balding, potential pedophilles who live in their parents’ basement and have little to no social interaction with the outside world  and sit around listening to music all day because music is the only thing that fills the void in their meaningless existence.  Man, that hits a little too close to home (except for the potential pedophille remark), but I digress.

When most records come out a seemingly in the know rock critic will listen to the record about three times and then write a review.  Most of the time, the assignment of who reviews what is either random or a writer will volunteer to review a certain new release.  Either way, the writer will automatically bring in their own preconceived notions about the music before he even listens to it.  So if the lead singer of a great band happens to have made out with the writer’s girlfriend in front of the writer at the after, after show party, then the writer is obviously going to write a less than favorable review.  Furthermore, who knows what sort of mood the deadline obsessed writer will be in when he finally comes out of his marijuana induced coma to write the review.  Lastly, some records are simply ahead of their time; their luminosity and brilliance  showing over time to be appreciated like a fine wine.

Anyways, here is my list of the 30 Most Underrated Albums of the Last Ten Years.  Enjoy.

Enjoy.

1.  Weezer - Pinkerton
2.  Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West
3.  Outkast - ATLiens
4.  The Verve - Urban Hymns
5.  Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire
6.  Evan Dando - Baby I’m Bored
7.  Mos Def Black on Both Sides
8.  Ambulance LTD. - S/T
9.  Muse - Absolution
10.  The Dandy Warhols - 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia

11.  Vue - Down For Whatever

12.  Q-Tip Kamal the Abstract

13.  The Stratford 4 - Love & Distortion

14.  Clearlake - Ceadars

15.  The Shins - Oh Inverted World!

16.  Jesse Malin - The Fine Art of Self Destruction

17.  The Dust Brothers - Soundtrack to the motion picture Fight Club

18.  Mitch Hedberg - Strategic Grill Locations

19.  Superdrag - In the Valley of Dying Stars

20.  Goodie Mob - Still Standing
21.  Ours - Distorted Lullabies

22.  Palo Alto - Heroes and Villans

23.  Pavement Brighten the Corners

24.  Josh Rouse - 1972

25.  Ugly Casanova - Sharpen Your Teeth

26.  Ben Harper Live from Mars

27.  Rancid Life Wont Wait

28.  Harvey Danger King James Version

29. Pinback Blue Screen Life

30.  Old 97s Too Far to Care

Everything you need to know about a band you can find in their name. Naming your band may be the most important thing you’ll ever do in your entire life. Give your band a shit name and people will automatically think you’re shit.

Example: Audioslave–great pedigree, great musicians, shitty band.

How can this be? How can the members of Rage Against the Machine (excellent band name) and the singer from Soundgarden (equally excellent) equal a sub par, standard rock fare? The answer simply lies in the namesake; a rose by any other name would be something else wouldn’t it? Call a rose crap and suddenly something smells like shit. Get my point?

So how can we solve this sartorial conundrum? Glad you asked, because here is

Pretentious Record Store Guy’s Handy Dandy Guide to Naming Your Band

Rule #1: If you’re in any kind of “core” band you need to show just how tough you really are. Blood works; bleeding works; dying and killing also work. Check out Bleeding Through, A River Runs Red, My Dying Bride, Blood Brothers, etc. So for my post-punk, neo-mathcore, pre-screamo, non ironic dance band we named our selves Bleed the Blood of the Dying.

Rule #2: Animals rock. Check out Wolf Eyes, Wolfparade, Wolf Mother, Band of Horses, Horse the Band, The Unicorns, etc.

Rule #3: Puns work. Check out The Beatles, Texas Chainsaw Mass Choir, etc. (Well, maybe they aren’t puns, but I’m not exactly sure what they are. I graduated high school, but I was mainly incoherent the majority of the time I was there. I’ve had a few college classes but nothing that has really stuck, you know, why bother? I already have the best job in the world: record store guy. I get to sit around all day and listen and talk about music and I get paid for it. How can you beat that? So it might not be a pun, but just because I’m not some English major doesn’t mean that you’re better than me. Screw you for judging me.)

Rule #4: “The” bands tend to work really well. Simply put “the” in front of something, thus making that something plural and watch the record deals come in (but this tends to only work if your sound is 70s garage rock rounding)…See The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Editors, The Stills, The Hives, etc.

Rule #5: Head(s) always works. See Talking Heads, Radiohead, The Lemoheads, etc.

Rule #6: When in doubt, go pretentious, that is, after all, my main motto in life. Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah, Godspeed You Black Emperor, etc. the longer the title, the cooler it is.

Who’s better? Who’s best? Pete Best? Why he’s the original drummer for The Beatles and could only be replaced by a Starr.

Speaking of originality, this newest comic is a complete rip off of Abbott and Costello’s classic routine “Who’s on First,” which was voted the best comedy routine of the 20th according to Time magazine. But Abbot and Costello simply caught the gag that had been floating through the smoke filled air of certain Vaudeville theatres for quite some time, which proves that all good art is theft.

Come to think of it, isn’t good theft an art?

Enjoy the latest edition of Pretentious Record Store Guy with your favorite beverage or six. Here’s to the ghosts of the 20th century who continue to haunt us to this very day.

Guess who.

What did you do today? I listened to the entire Belle and Sebastian catalog on vinyl and then I came up with 50 Cool Band Names. Then I had the whole afternoon to bask in my glory. Kind of beats your little 9 to 5 doesn’t it? So, here we go–50 Cool Band Names I Came Up With Today. The Stares, No Exit, No Hope for Escape, Operator, There Is An Emergency, People Killing People, Kill Your Puppets, The Sesame Street Walkers, How Rudimentary My Dear Watson, Hare, Violens (not misspelled), Upstairs, Evil Jeans Us, Hasta La Quinta, Flight of the Deceiver, I Had a Burst of Brilliance the Other Day But You Rudely Interrupted Me Before I Could Write It Down Now I Will Be Forever Wondering What That Burst of Brilliance Was and If It Could Have Changed the Course of Mankind, Perhaps I Was Wrong, I Sincerely Doubt It, The Challengers, Are You Challenging Me, MIT Mouse (obviously mathcore), Stairing Contest (not misspelled), Blink F–k You Too (sounds kind of like 182), People Never Say Thank You Anymore, The Hell Handbasket, Ain’t Nothing But A G String, The Sherlock Holmes Conspiracy, Twix, Resume, The Whoremones, Upstares, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Experience, The Power Transformers, Sir Cut Brakers, His Majestic Excellency Requests, El Magnifico, The Leather Strait Jackets, A Question of Taste, Stupid Pet Trick or Treat, Hello Queen, Thoughts of Suicide Pass Through My Mind But Your Memory Keeps Me Going, House of 1,000 Dead Petting Zoos, An Affair to Dismember, A Rivers Cuomo Runs Through It, Brad Pitfall, The Broken Dream Cast A Long Shadow, In the Light of Day You Aren’t As Beautiful as You Used to Be, We Are Getting Older Now, Deaf Becomes Her… And the number one band name is Bleed the Blood of the Dying–even though I didn’t come up with it today it still deserves a place at the top of the pantheon of today’s names because of its’ utter genius.

Every journey has a beginning.

Every epic has a start.

Every Pretentious Record Store Guy first listened to his sister’s old mixed tapes.

To read the first comic from the start, go to the Pretentious Record Store Guy Comics page.

If you’re like Pretentious Record Store Guy then you’re 5′10″, rail thin, ridiculously good looking and your hair is the elixir from which dreams are made. And since there is only one Pretentious Record Store Guy and this is his website, then you are not him. Your loss.

But you are also a pretentious music fan, an aficionado of the underground, the litmus test by which any band who is anyone will be judged and blogged by before their fist single even makes it to a mall to be sold at Sam Goody and purchased by know-nothings who will only buy whatever Rolling Stone, Spin or A.P. advertisers steer them towards. We are the taste makers that serve up our sacrificial lambs to the mainstream so that they can die and be be resurrected in the temple of rock.

This site is an ongoing affair and will be constantly updated, amended, bushwhacked, anointed, assembled, destroyed and resurected anew on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. To check out the newest Pretentious Record Store Guy comic simply turn your eyes to your right and continue reading. To read the webcomic about the adventures of a record store clerk who has forgotten more about music than you’ll ever know from the start of the begininng, simply click here on Comics.

For those of you in the know, you know already, but for those mere mortals who are lacking in Indie cred and need to brush up in order to win a few hipster battles, click on the Pretentious Record Store Blog and save yourselves the embarrassment of being the last one to jump on the newest thing’s bandwagon.

Show some love and impress all of your fashionista friends by purchasing your very own Pretentious Record Store Guy t-shirts available in all sizes including Youth Large, Small and Medium.

See what all the rock critics are raving about when you check out the Pretentious Record Store Guy’s Top Five List.

If you were in the know, you would have known already.

Praise be to Brian Jones!

Praise be to Andrew Wood!

Long live Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and John Lennon!

Long live Rock and Roll!

Join the Pretentious Record Store Guy Fan Club now (For fans of Indie rock, fashionistas, hipsters, groupies, models/supermodels, models/actresses and Woody Allen).Basically the Pretentious Record Store Guy Fan Club is a place where fans of Pretentious Record Store Guy can go and talk about how great Pretentious Record Store Guy is. Say you like a comic or you really, really like a comic, then you can tell people how much you like it. And then I can read how much you guys worship me and then my ego can expand even more, thus covering up all the insecurity I felt as a totally unpretentious young lad, who because of his frail physique and ridiculous good looks was picked upon by equally insecure philistines and jocks.

If you don’t like the comic then you can just burn in hell; the world really doesn’t need your negativity anyways. You probably secretly like Cathy and The Family Circus don’t you? Go home and listen to your Hootie and the Blowfish records over and over until your ears bleed because of the hemorrhaging in you brain that happens when you’ve listened to “Let Her Cry” for the 999th time in a row!

Amateurs.