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Evening children, welcome to Clippings & Scribblings, a news entry with editorials. I’m Sketch E. Whiteface, and I’m an alcoholic… err, close enough.
In the musical metallurgy realm, if not already aware, the masked nine-piece band Slipknot is back and with full force with a new album dubbed “All Hope Is Gone” coming out this Tuesday. The band started performing for the first time in nearly two years in July on the Rockstar Mayhem Festival tour with Disturbed, Dragonforce and Mastodon. I attended the show in Mansfield, MA and breathed chaos from the energy exhumed, it was pure gold. If you’ve been keeping track of the tour or the band you would know that Slipknot’s DJ, Sid “0″ Wilson, had injured himself during on of the shows. In the body of their set he jumped off one of the raised platforms and broke both his ankles. Whereas some would put off the rest of the tour they marched on through and Sid was confined to a wheelchair until healed properly. They’ve gone through much worse injuries (especially Wilson), such as concussions, severe burns, lacerations and other often life-threatening bumps. However recently they’ve acquire a rather large set-back, an issued statement from the band apologized for the fact they will have to cut their appearances at the Reading & Leeds Festival in England and their European tour due to drummer Joey “1″ Jordison broke his ankle. Apart from canceling of a tour they subsequently had to cancel several appearances in light of the incident.
In other unfortunate news for entertainers canceling things, the highly anticipated “Ghostbusters” video game expected to be released this October is CANCELED. I’ll give you a few moments to finish crying and throwing your computer chair out the window. Activision was due to be the distributor behind the cult classic based game but dropped it and several other titles.  While franchise games such as “Crash Bandicoot” and “Spyro” where sold to Activision by Vivendi Games the interactive sequel to an iconic film series was left in the dust. However all hope is not gone for this game for the developers are searching for someone to release it and have assured fans that it will be released. Now on the commentary for this: are you fucking kidding me? You pass up something that’s existed for 25 years to something that’s been around only 10 aimed solely at kids? And keep in mind, the “Ghostbusters” game features the original cast and was penned by Reitman, Aykroyd and Ramis. This is more or less the sequel everyone’s been hoping for and courtesy of schmucks with calculators it’s left out in the desert with a canteen and a compass.
And now for more theoretical blabberings. Last weekend the nerd orgasm known as “The Dark Knight” was taken over at the box office by Ben Stiller comedy “Tropic Thunder“. However as it lowered to the number two spot it also arised to the number two spot at the all-time box office having earned $475 million dollars passing “Star Wars: A New Hope” and settling just under “Titanic” which holds the record at $600 million (for some reason.) Currently on IMDb.com the Christopher Nolan directed comic-book movie is holding it’s place at #3 on the top 250 highest rated movies, and also broke the record for being #1 after only two days of it’s release. Since the weekend prior it made it’s box office jump by a good $40 million and this fan has a strong belief that it will knock the boat over. I plan to toss another seven bucks into the pot this weekend and I strongly encourage you to do the same. One more hill to get over, people. Come on.

=Sketch/Ed

I love the internet.
This is so gross, not for the faint of heart.
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Huey Lewis is in dire need of your assistance. Wait, he is? According to MattressPolice.com he most definitely is in need of YOUR help, and my help, and apparently anybody’s help. Harnessing the power of the mighty internet, this fellow named Diesel (I’ve got a funny story about that name in another context, but I digress) has issued a solemn plea to get Huey Lewis back into the hearts and ears of everyone who partakes of classic rock radio.

In the words of the fossil fuel named author himself:

The avowed purpose of this blog is to bring back the genius that is Huey Lewis. In particular, I want Huey to get the airtime on classic rock radio stations that is being squandered on hacks like BTO and Foghat.

As of this posting he’s only got 59 comments to this petition. Maybe Akismet is working overtime? This is where you come in. Only YOU (and me, and a ton of other people) can actually raise a big enough stink to get people to acknowledge the greatness that is Huey Lewis (with or without The News, though for the record I’d prefer with).

Reasons I’m in favor of this cause personally?

1. I still own a vinyl of Fore! (For non-hipsters or people under the age of 20, “vinyl” refers to a circular disk of compressed plastic with grooves cut into it, also known as a record or record album, which when a needle connected to various wires is correctly drawn across it will produce sound.)
2. I mentally associated either Hip to Be Square or Stuck With You (forget which at the moment) with the very flavor Fig Newtons for the longest time. Straight up synesthesia. (Another tip for some of our less worldly readers: Fig Newtons are both fruit… AND cake. Astounding but true.)

The author also raises several very good points as to why Huey Lewis will make a very important contribution to the distribution and serving up of classic rock, but I’ll let you determine for yourself.

Do you long for the days of ‘zines? Running off to follow loud bands who were either extremely concerned or extremely unconcerned with the way of the world? Dressing however you felt like, and sometimes with the express goal of freaking out the normals? Well I more-or-less don’t because I missed the whole thing. I was either too young or too oblivious to know what was up. I was also one of those irritating “good kids” who never really did anything they wanted if it seemed like it might be trouble. …I’ve come a long way, baby, but I digress.

My beloved ToM tipped me off to Operation Phoenix Records, with their already bold “fuck you” attitude towards concise domain names and more up-to-date web design have provided a stunning collection of punk ‘zines. Most of them are donated from kind collectors, and the folks at OPR seem to have dilligently gotten permission to reprint all of them. Whole magazines have been provided as PDFs, and band interviews are provided as regular pages, with acts ranging from GG Alin and Millions of Dead Cops to Black Flag and Nirvana. For your reading pleasure I give you a sneak peek at the GG Alin interview (as it was originally featured in Maximumrocknroll):

MRR: What are your feelings on the bands in NH and Massachusetts?

GG: I don’t fucking know. I’m not in tune to what’s going on at all. I’m not accepted in the scene. I just go about my fuckin’ life and my thing so I don’t really know what’s going on. I can’t even keep track of myself, so how can I know about that?

What’s funny about that is I don’t really know much about the New Hampshire and Massachusetts music scene either, except of course for Turbosloth.

P.S. You should definitely also check out the podcast! Episodes 5-11 of the CDRs Are for Communists Punk Radio Show are available right at the site.