The Silversun Pickups Less Fun than Staring

Pictured: Ethan Hawke. A pretentious douchebag whose work is derivative of greater artists and also most likely a roadie for the Silversun Pickups.

I was in the gym several times over the past weeks, lifting weights as only I can, and on the flatscreens they would periodically play a music video from some band that I've never heard of called the Silversun Pickups. Now, it's probably important to tell you that they play music over what is actually on the flatscreens, thus negating the purpose of having flatscreens in the gym at all. If they want to show me an inspiring visual image while I get my lift on, I would rather they show my hypnotoad instead of MTVU. At least hypnotoad is likely to get me to sync my movements with his hypnotism so that I'll be working out with an optimal heart rate at a solid 130 beats per minute.

So, back to the Silversun Pickups. I was a little skeptical about their music for a number of reason. For starters, their bassist is a broad who looks like a young Allison Janney, and usually having a female musician in the band is a telltale sign that the music will blow. As far as I can remember, I have never rocked out to a female musician in any capacity, just as sure as I've never laughed at a joke of a single female comedian (I'm looking at you Margaret Cho, Ellen Degeneres, and Wande Sykes). The only band where I can even remotely remember this dynamic working is Sonic Youth, and that's mostly in spite of Kim Gordon, since Thurston Moore and Lee Ronaldo are so outstanding that their riffs often drown out the vocals to songs that Kim is trying to ruin. On the other hand, their video had what appeared to be hot models playing musical chairs, which I thought appeared sexy on the surface.

Well, it came as little surprise to me that when I finally listened to this video during a period of YouTubeage that it sucked hard.

Their lead singer sounds like Billy Corgan, only if he was to mainline even more estrogen. All of the male band members have stupid facial hair and lame hipster beards like Ethan Hawke in the picture up top. The sound of the band combined the shittiest parts of Sonic Youth, the Smashing Pumpkins, Nada Surf and a string of other 90's bands whose memory lead singer Brian Aubert has chosen to take a dump on. Throw in a few riffs that sound like the shittiest songs the Strokes played in their early years and you pretty much have this band pegged.

However, I couldn't shake the feeling that there is probably a core following of Hipster douchebags who think that this band is great and who yearn for a crappy Smashing Pumpkins tribute band. Thanks to the fine people at Amazon, I was able to confirm this hypothesis. I could almost imagine most of the reviewers sitting at their Mac Notebooks in a Starbucks in Brooklyn or Portland, taking time off of writing the screenplay that they've been working on for the last 3 years to push their Rivers Cuomo glasses further up their noses and hunker down to write a music review that is an exercise in pretension.

Woogie Boogie, Hipsters...Woogie Boogie.

Hating on UClown

Seen here: Students of The Gunnery, who are better served on the Quidditch pitch than trying to run wild on my game at the gym, on the field, or in the club.


If there is one school that has shot up my rankings for hatred it is the University of Connecticut, or as they are known in esteemed circles UClown.

Let’s start off on reasons to hate UClown, shall we? For starters, what the Hell is up with the way they spell their name? How is the second ‘c’ in Connecticut a silent ‘c’? Shouldn’t it be pronounced Connect-i-cut or in the alternate, spelled Conneticut? I try to avoid unnecessary surplusages, specifically in the form of redundant consonants.

What are they connecting the dots, La-la-la-la? If you’re going to rip off a bit from Pee Wee in your name, at least make it something cool, like having the King of Cartoons as your mascot. That would be unreal, unlike that albino Husky that they have.

Yes, that’s right. The Whitest state in the Union takes the Whitest mammal in the animal kingdom as its mascot.

Another reason that UClown is lame is because it takes the weakest parts of two of the most wretched fanbases in professional sports and grafts them onto each other. So, you get the long-suffering fans of Joke Sox Nation, who have been members since their high school fuck buddy bought them one of those stupid red hats in ’05 (or a stupid pink Joke Sox hat; wouldn’t want to forget about the ladies) as well as all the pansy Yankees fans who grew up in suburban Connecticut, whose parents commute an hour each way to avoid the hellhole that is NYC, but claim the Bronx.

Yet perhaps the greatest reason to hate on UClown is their fanbase yapping about Donyell Marshall this, and Emeka Okafor that. Yo, I get it. You have some Final Four banners and we don’t. But don’t deny that Jamie has matched Cryhoun move for move since taking over and that guys who maxed out as college players like Chevy Troutman haven’t beaten your All-Americans’ assess senseless. Which doesn’t even count the times that DeJuan Blair beat Has Been Thabeet’s ass so hard that Cryhoun didn’t know whether to complain to the refs or to call Child Welfare Services to handle the Big Fella.

This brings us to this week’s topic of discussion. UClown is taking on our Panthers in football. Notice the double-standard that they can dis Pitt for not having any Final Fours yet, but when we point out their lack of history and success as footballers, they respond that they have only had a real team for like a decade. Don’t bring that weak sauce up into my barbecue, UClown. The reason you have no history is that all the cake eaters at Westover, Choate, The Gunnery are too soft to play for any real team.

Bottom line, this week it’s time to slap around UClown from the moment that all 53 players that they intend to dress drive out onto the field and start piling out of their undersized Volkswagen and putting on their big red cleats.

And if you see anybody on the streets this week wearing a Joke Sox hat, you should punch them in the face just incase he is a UClown sympathizer.