Conspiracy of Dope

The call came in to the LowBallAssChatter office: a grumpy voice was harrumphing away on the other end. “Harrumph! Harrumph! . . . The Shack! . . . Harrumph! Harrumph! . . . Rich Crane! . . . Harrumph! . . . Bands! . . . Harrumph! . . . Conspiracy!” Let us offer a translation: apparently, ever since a Weekly cover story two months ago exposed the sordid little secret that the Shack in Anaheim had been booking various Nazi/skinhead/white-power bands over the past few years (“Springboard for Hitler,” Sept. 7), the Kraemer Boulevard club has had a bit of trouble finding bands to book—golly, now that's a shocker. The gentleman caller was a Shack booker, and he phoned to complain that the article's author, one “Rich Crane” (uhhh, actually, the name's “Kane,” but several attempts at corrections from the LowBall staffer who took the call failed to sway our friendly booker friend), had been organizing a boycott against the club, and that this Crane fellow was contacting bands, demanding that they never, ever play the Shack. When informed of the extracurricular activities that he'd allegedly been up to, we must say that Kane left quite a soppy, sticky mess of RC cola all over his desk, which got there because he shot gallons of the stuff through his nose. It goes without saying, but we'll say it anyway: we simply don't have the time to organize a boycott against anything, as we're constantly busy coming up with new, creative ways to make fun of Sugar Ray and Lit (as well as torturing ourselves by listening to endless CD submissions from really, really bad bands); our boss would kick us to the curb for launching such an un-journalistic attempt at activism, and we need our job to pay for our new Lamborghini; and we've never endorsed a boycott against the Shack—all we did was air their dirty laundry, and, damn, are the Shack's sheets stinky! If there is some kind of boycott being arranged (by this Crane dude, we'll assume), so be it. It's just fallout from the masses rising up, kids, because that's what people do when they smell Nazis—and nothing pisses people off quite like Nazis.

SPEAKING OF LITSeems there just can't be a new Lit album without some sort of gratuitous product placement afoot. So when the band once known as the glam-metal-spewin', cock-rock-playin', hair-spray-spritzin' act Razzle announced the release of Atomic, the sequel to their mega-super-boffo-smash-hit album A Place in the Sun, we just knew we'd be forced to suffer through an onslaught of product placements to go along with it (“We're here to rock you! But first, these messages,” Lit always seem to be saying). While the Place in the Sun era saw Anaheim's Biggest Band Not Named No Doubt plug Jgermeister, 1-800-COLLECT and some sorta car manufacturer (was it Honda or Volkswagen?), Atomic sees Lit shacking up with their large teenage-girl fan base through a tie-in with Urban Decay cosmetics. Here's how the ad we found on mp3.com put it: “Urban Decay brings you 'Lipstick and Bruises!' With exciting makeup colors like 'Rebel' and 'Bruise,' beauty now rocks with Urban Decay. Let the fun begin and satisfy all your senses by checking out Lit's new album Atomic, the follow-up to their smash RCA debut, A Place in the Sun. The first single off the new album is the appropriately titled 'Lipstick and Bruises.'” We'll only guess what other Atomic tracks will be used for commercials. How about “Everything's Cool” plugging home pregnancy tests? Or “She Comes” used in ads for double-dong vibrators? We're here to help! SPACE ODDITY If you're looking for something to do this Saturday night, the performance by harp player Peter Sterling at the Learning Light Foundation in Anaheim sounds like a good bet. Not that we know a thing about his music, but we enjoyed the press release: “You are cordially invited to enjoy Celestial Harp & Flute Music and exotic tales of Angelic musical encounters. . . . In 1992 while living in Sedona, Arizona, Peter encountered a group of angelic light beings who encouraged him to play the harp. Following his angel's guidance, he recorded his first album, Harp Magic.”

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