Bret Michaels, Richie Ramone, and the week of the washed-up rockers

by Josiah Hughes

February 7, 2014

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After the clock struck 12 on New Year’s Day, I tipsily tweeted that 2014 sucks. I thought I was joking, but the last week has all-but completely proven me right. Woody and Dylan Allen’s public back and forth has inspired a world of insensitive back-and-forth shit-flinging about a very sensitive subject. Philip Seymour Hoffman overdosed on heroin, another thing that everyone has a (usually horrible) opinion about. DMX is probably going to fight the dude that murdered Trayvon Martin on pay-per-view. The world is too much to bear.

Musically, too, we’re in that brutal deadzone at the start of the year, where very few new releases worth a damn have surfaced. Of course, there’ve still been plenty of missteps, as the music machine keeps spewing out piping hot trash. Thankfully, unlike the aforementioned horribleness of sexual assault, addiction, and racial violence, the fact that some people are trying to make it big with their terrible music is comparatively benign. So, as a brief respite from the ongoing hellscape that the web has become, let’s trudge through the shit stream and share a chuckle over some funny garbage that was released into the world this week.

I previously found some promotional materials for Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer’s new Rockin’ and Roastin’ coffee beans. Since that discovery prompted a national outcry, begging for more details, I now present this blurry iPhone video interview with the artist, shot at a place called Dave’s Fresh Marketplace in Smithfield, RI.

Joey Kramer isn’t the only rocking dad hawking ads, however, as human S.T.I. former reality star and one-time Poison frontman Bret Michaels is now selling his very own cologne.

Michaels went on the Home Shopping Network to drum up excitement for the product, and you can watch the whole 21-minute appearance below. C’mon, do it.

Best of all, the sprayable chemical water comes with a free copy of Michaels’ Jammin’ With Friends, which sees him jammin’ with friends that include Lil Jon and members of Kiss.

As tempting as it is to keep wading through the washed-up rockers on my favourite metal site, it’s too easy. After all, that’s a niche world for people with niche interests. But what’s going on in the mainstream music world? Specifically, what kind of new music has industry leader Billboard been promoting this week?

Welp, another washed-up rocker. Namely, ’80s Ramones drummer Richie Ramone, who penned the band’s “Somebody Put Something in My Drink,” among others. That was a remarkably long time ago, however, and Richie’s new song “Criminal” is the sort of just-plain-bad batch of cluelessness that makes me feel many different kinds of sad.

Shot on a black-and-white handicam by Steven Hanft, who directed Beck’s “Loser” and “Where It’s At” videos a few centuries ago, the video follows some sort of low-budget crime plot involving fake money, angsty teenagers, and Ramone grunting out his song with a backing band with a sub-Hot Topic fashion sense.That song, by the way, is a straightforward rock jam that pretty much sounds like bad Misfits karaoke.

Of course, without the Ramones we would have never had American punk rock. Then again, without American punk rock we probably wouldn’t have to deal with King the Kid. After racking up millions and millions of YouTube views by covering Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Macklemore, and Fall Out Boy, the group debuted their new single “Last Train” this week, and Billboard chose to premiere the music video.

If you’re the type of person who’s ever been to Disneyland but also listened to one of Alex Jones’ insane illuminati rants on the radio, you’ll recognize the feeling of oppressive joy that this song delivers. It’s the sort of bouncy, scrubbed-clean, overwhelming pop music that’s so damn cheery it must be evil. The three grinning haircuts in this band are either the most overly sanitized, extra vanilla upper middle class children to ever live, or evil human shells set to brainwash the youth and enslave the next generation of people who prefer processed guitars over processed dance music. And yet I can’t seem to turn it off. IT’S HAPPENING.

Tags: Music, News, Bret Michaels, garbage day

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