RANTS & RAMBLINGS

Walked past the pharmacy display window today and saw a mountain of Dr. Loomis's new paperback. Front cover has that same blurry, sensationalized photo of the Myers house. It's sickening.

Loomis isn't a doctor; he's a corporate carnivore selling cheap pop-psychology and exploiting a tragedy to secure his talk-show circuit appearances. He wants you terrified. The local police want you paranoid so you don't question where your tax dollars are going.

We don't stock that trash here. If you come in looking for the true-crime section to gawk at a town's scars, go to the corporate mall out on the highway. We deal in vinyl, celluloid, and unfiltered reality. Buy a coffee, spin some Sabbath, and stop letting these hacks sell your own nightmares back to you.
— Staff

This one's not due for another couple weeks, but I was lucky enough to score a copy for my own personal listening experience. The single "New Fang" is all over the radio if you're anxious for a taste of that Zeppelin-flavored desert rock.

When people pitch a "supergroup," it usually results in a bunch of past-their-prime rock stars phoning in some boring blues riffs for a quick paycheck. Then you look at the lineup for this project: Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl on drums, and John Paul Jones—the literal architect of the bass groove from Led Zeppelin.

This record is an absolute masterclass in heavy, hypnotic, rhythmic rock 'n' roll. Homme's jagged, robotic guitar style pairs perfectly with John Paul Jones' clavinet and driving basslines on tracks like "No One Loves Me & Neither Do I" and "Mind Eraser, No Chaser." And Grohl? He hasn't drummed with this much unhinged, feral power since the Songs for the Deaf sessions. It's greasy, it's complex, it's incredibly loud, and it sounds like three guys having the absolute time of their lives in a room together.

THE VERDICT: The best straight-up rock record of 2009, hands down. It has a swagger that you just can't fake. Pick up the physical CD or the vinyl before we run out of stock.

A man sat in the shop for nearly four hours yesterday. Ordered one coffee. Said approximately seven words. Spent the entire time studying a map of Haddonfield. Not a road atlas. Not a tourist map. A hand-drawn map. Covered in notes. Circled locations. Dates. Arrows. The kind of thing that immediately raises questions.

Naturally I attempted to see what he was looking at. Naturally he folded it up the moment I got close. I have never wanted to know something more in my entire life.

I am pleased to report that local confidence in municipal transparency remains completely nonexistent.

Eighty-one percent of respondents believe the city is hiding something.

The remaining nineteen percent probably work for the city.

I was incredibly skeptical when I heard the remaining guys were moving forward without Layne Staley. Layne's ghostly, haunting voice was fifty percent of what made Alice in Chains work, and trying to replace him felt like a corporate cash grab. I've never been happier to be proven wrong.

William DuVall doesn't try to impersonate Layne; instead, he locks into those trademark, eerie two-part vocal harmonies with Jerry Cantrell flawlessly. Musically, this thing is a heavy, beautifully miserable trudge through the mud. Tracks like "Check My Brain" and "A Looking in View" feature some of the absolute dirtiest, heaviest guitar riffs Cantrell has ever written, sounding like a rusted iron gate swinging in the wind. The title track features Elton John on piano as a tribute to Layne, and it will absolutely break your heart.

THE VERDICT: It's a triumphant, respectful, and incredibly heavy resurrection. They honored their past without cheapening it. Highest possible recommendation.

Two different customers and my register kid have told me this week that I need to rent that Jim Carrey movie, The Number 23. They think they’re being funny. They think they’re armchair psychologists pointing out that I’m "obsessing" or that I’ve got some kind of pattern-recognition brain rot.

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not hiding anything, I'm not losing my mind, and I don't need a Hollywood movie to tell me how to look at reality. I don't care about the number 23, and I don't care about numerology or internet conspiracy forums.

I'm a pragmatist. I look at facts. And the fact is, when the same sequence of numbers shows up in your cash drawer, your staff's ages, the municipal power grid failures, and your own office hardware over a three-year period, it ceases to be a "coincidence." It means there is a repeatable, mechanical variable in the environment that shouldn't be there.

I'm not crazy. The town is just leaking data, and I'm the only one bothered to write it down.

To the middle-aged businessman who felt the need to lecture my counter staff about their tattoos and "employability" this morning: Your coffee has been revoked permanently.

The kids working in this shop are worth ten of you. They actually care about art, they know their history, and they keep this place running while I'm in the back wrestling with distributor invoices. If you can't handle looking at a nose ring or a sleeve of horror flash while you get your morning fix, take your corporate briefcase down to the gas station and get your lukewarm sludge there.

I built the Java Hole as a sanctuary for the misfits and the weirdos in this straight-laced town. If you don't like the scenery, don't look at it. The door works both ways.

In case you missed them last year, Blue Öyster Cult is coming back to Illinois with Foghat on July 2nd. Look up Ribfest in Naperville for more info. I think there's an admission fee this time, but it's got to be cheap.

I left the shop for two hours this afternoon to pick up a bulk order of espresso beans, and I came back to find the girls had completely taken over the house audio system. They pulled my Captain Beefheart record off the platter and replaced it with some abrasive, distorted local noise-rock that sounded like a lawnmower falling down a flight of stairs.

There were three elderly customers drinking tea in the corner who looked like they were suffering from mild psychological shock.

I was going to yell at them, but honestly? The shop was packed, the customers were actually buying records, and the energy was the best it's been in a year. Laurie was managing the register, Mya was whipping up drinks, and Harley was arguing with some college kid about whether punk died in 1979. I'm surrounded by maniacs, but they're my maniacs. If you want to experience the chaos firsthand, the weekend shift starts Friday. Don't complain to me about the music volume.

Five years after American Idiot, Billie Joe Armstrong decided that what the world needed was another three-act punk-rock opera. This time, it's an eighteen-track, bloated, over-produced stadium rock record that sounds more like Queen or Meat Loaf than anything born in a sweaty Gilman Street basement.

The title track and "Know Your Enemy" are fine for what they are—catchy, hyper-polished radio anthems designed to be sung by fifty thousand people holding up cell phones in an arena. But Butch Vig's production has completely stripped the band of their grit. Everything is perfectly gridded, perfectly pitch-corrected, and smoothed out until there isn't a single rough edge left on Mike Dirnt's bass or Tré Cool's drums. It feels calculated, theatrical, and exhausting to sit through in its entirety.

THE VERDICT: The high school crowd is buying this by the crate-load, so it's keeping our lights on this month. But if you actually want to hear Green Day sound like a real band, go buy a used copy of Kerplunk or Dookie.