LAGRANGE, Ga. — Several hundred fans were torn Friday night over whether to give it to funk singer G.T. Stone and his band again after having given it to him once already during a set out of fear that he would ask for more, apprehensive sources confirmed.
“I don’t like giving it more than once, especially this early in the night,” said longtime Stone fan Marcia Stipp. “I mean, when does it end? I’ll give it to anyone once, sure. Then if they ask again, I’m more or less obligated, right? But here it gets tricky. Three times? Whoa. Four times? Now I feel like I’m being taken advantage of. Sometimes I don’t think these funk singers take into consideration what it means for people my age to give it up—or even turn it loose.”
Stone admitted there is a science to the give-it-to-me strategy, which dates back to the early days of funk.
“It’s the classic foot-in-the-door technique, developed by Stanford psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser back in, oh, I wanna say 1966?” said Stone. “It goes something like this. If I can get you to say yes to one thing, I can get you to say yes to another thing—and so on down the line. And it doesn’t matter if the ‘thing’ here is a simple hello or a million dollars in life insurance or something more nuanced, like the universal ‘it’ of funk, man. And don’t ask me what ‘it’ is again. I’ve been down that funk railroad too many times.”
Prize-winning funk historian Al “Lay-It-Down” Brown testified to being able to see both sides of the coin.
“It is indeed a slippery slope, and I myself won’t give it to a singer even once. Most singers coming up through the system try to squeeze out as many as they can from the audience,” said Brown. “Isaac Hayes used to average a good nine per night. One sweltering night in Newport News I saw a crowd give it to James Brown 73 times in a row—but that’s rare. No one will ever come close to that again. Fans have learned their lesson.”
At press time, Stone was heard saying, “Let’s hear it for the band one more time,” while the crowd deliberated over whether having already applauded twice was sufficient.
Samiam later in their career always kind of rode that line between catchy punk and mainstream radio rock and this is the one where that line is crossed. This is a perfectly fine album but it’s also the one that you can almost imagine being played over the loudspeaker at your local supermarket.
After a six-year hiatus, they returned with this album and immediately something seemed off. All the elements are there for the most part but the recording sounds like it was done with a boombox placed in the middle of the practice room. The backlash to this was so bad that they released a remixed version in 2013 to fix the glaring mistakes but even this new version doesn’t really seem to have the goods.
It’s probably unfair to compare a band’s brand-new album to everything they’ve been doing for three previous decades, but then again life isn’t fair. We have to judge this one based solely on the music itself without any rose-colored nostalgia corrupting our judgment. The good news is the verdict is this a really good album with a lot of it sounding like something from their catalog in the late ‘90s.
1990 was a weird year for music. The punk and hardcore bands of the ‘80s had burned themselves out and the Whitesnakes of the world dominated the airwaves. This was the year Samiam released their first full-length and in a way picked up where Hüsker Dü left off even though it may be a little rough in spots.
Maybe it was the fact that nothing happened on Y2K, but by 2000 Samiam seemed to cool their heels a bit and relaxed into a mid-career cruise. Astray is both a little more angsty than its predecessor and also a bit more tame. We spent most of the year 2000 eating through our doomsday rations anyway.
Their second major label release and from a production stance, arguably their best-sounding record. Beebout’s vocals are clean but powerful and you can tell he was really swinging for the fences. This is the soundtrack to a slacker alt road trip to find the best thrift store two states over.
The second album for every band is tricky. While some bands make embarrassing cringe-tastic decisions on their second album (“Let’s add violins!”) Samiam instead solidified their sound and smoothed off just enough of the rough edges from their debut.
Their first major label release and their big breakout which earned them some modest airplay on MTV and even an appearance on the early Jon Stewart Show. The deep pockets of Atlantic Records afforded them better production but luckily they avoided the pitfalls of the overly slick and sanitized sound so many bands seem to fall into once Daddy Music Label opens their wallet.
What a sad fucking album this is but somehow it still makes you feel happy. Well, maybe not happy but possibly less depressed. Is it emo? Shit no. But it’s emotional as fuck. It almost feels like a concept album with the concept being life is shit especially when you’re broke and lonely.
There is no way in hell I’m sharing a vehicle with this man. But I guess if I absolutely have to, this would be my one and only opportunity to push this guy out of a moving car.
The Kiss bassist wouldn’t wear a seatbelt the entire time because, according to him, no one ever did back in his day. This is going to make me wonder how many other basic safety considerations he’s going to forgo on this trip.
The Gorillaz bassist would somehow run over several small animals while driving. It wouldn’t be until the third or fourth time he took out a possum that I’d start to think he was actually intentionally aiming for them. It’s really killing the adventure and wanderlust vibes.
It’ll be six hours into this road trip before Fat Mike informs me that he doesn’t have a driver’s license. Then he’s going to tell me he forgot his wallet. Also his toothbrush, so he’ll have to use mine. Nothing but red flags.
You just know Nikki smells like a combination of hairspray and cigarettes even though I’ve never seen him smoke. The Marlboro aromas are fine, but I draw the line at anything that smells like Axe Body Spray.
Krist is 6’7” so he’s going to be so uncomfortable in my compact car. We’d have to stop every 20 to 30 minutes so he can get out and stretch his legs. Road trips are typically more suitable for short kings.
The Guns N’ Roses bassist has been sober for decades, so I feel like he’s going to judge me when I crack open a few drinks when it’s my turn to drive. I just function better when I’m a few beers deep. Is that so wrong?
The Black Sabbath bassist would complain about gas prices the entire time. Buddy, I know gas was a quarter per gallon in the ‘70s, but that was before the government allowed rampant corporate greed to take over. Get with the program.
The Iron Maiden bassist would throw all of this trash on the floor even though I have a plastic bag for this exact purpose. At least he separates it beforehand. Recycling goes in the passenger side, general garbage in the back, and food scraps go out the window.
White Zombie’s bassist would want to bring her pet snake with her and it’d ride in the backseat. I’m going to be staring at that thing in the rearview mirror the entire time. She’s the reason I’d have to institute a stern “no reptiles” rule on future road trips.
The MxPx bassist would Instagram the entire trip, as if anyone cares we just hit Indiana. He’d even post reels like a total dork. I wouldn’t mind it so much, but he keeps using the hashtag #vanlife and it’s bothering me because we’re in a sedan.
The Korn bassist would be a fine companion on the road to a certain extent, but he’d only consume Red Bulls, Mountain Dew, and Five-Hour Energy the entire way. I’d never see him drink water and I’d start to get worried.
The Strokes bassist would prefer to sit in silence the entire time because he’s “not much of a music fan.” Just what am I supposed to pay attention to while driving?
Les famously took bass to a whole new level. Unfortunately, he’s going to keep bringing that up the entire car ride. I’d have to pretend like I have to take a dump at every single rest stop just to get a break from him.
The Adverts bassist may be iconic in the punk world, but she’d want to hit every roadside attraction in the US. It doesn’t matter that the world’s largest ball of twine is three hours out of our way or the giant statue of Paul Bunyan’s ox is on the other side of the country, Gaye’s bucket list is somehow the priority.
The Clash bassist is extremely British. That means he drives on the opposite side of the road. I generally don’t have a problem with that, but US traffic cops might. Seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
The Talking Heads bassist would pack several charcuterie boards full of cured meats, pâtés, and spreads. That’s fine and all, but she wouldn’t leave any room on the board for Funyuns, which is my go-to road trip snack.
90 minutes into the excursion, the Minutemen bassist is going to ask “Are we there yet?” even though I told him beforehand that this was a cross country trip. Starting to think he’s never seen a map before. That must be why he didn’t seem to quite understand the concept of Wyoming.
Jerry has a whole list of attractions he wants to see along the way, but they’re all Spirit Halloween stores. Jerry, I assure you that the Spirit Halloween in Nebraska has the same stuff as the one in New Jersey.
Somewhere between art rock and screamo lived Angel Hair. They were an awesomely weird band and the fact that they were from hippie-ass Boulder and not the screamo headquarters of San Diego makes them even weirder and more awesomer.
Duncan Barlow spent his youth in Louisville, Kentucky playing in quite a few notable hardcore bands like Endpoint, Guilt, and By The Grace Of God. But as an adult, he moved to Denver, got himself a fancy new hat, and began d.biddle fusing a type of alt-country with stringed instrumentation and emo.
There have been a lot more female-fronted political hardcore bands lately. It’s almost as if on a daily basis our society slips further into a Handmaiden-esque dystopia which for some reason has made a number of women angry, go figure. Keeping the flames of the discontent burning is relative newcomers Faim. Their brand of raw, politically-charged hardcore serves as a soundtrack to smashing the fuck out of the patriarchy.
There came a time in the early 2000s when the math-y, hectic style of hardcore started to reach embarrassing lows (remember those fucking “crabcore” bands?) But there were some bands still holding it down and destroying stages and eardrums. Fear Before The March Of Flames was one of those bands.
Probably the only band on this list your mom approves of. And while they may sound like a cross between Sam Cooke and the sound of a craft distillery opening, they have deep roots in the indie and punk scenes of Denver. We dare you not to toe-tap along to their denim-drenched jams.
Not only do instrumental riff lords Native Daughters have not one, but two, drummers, both drummers play upfront live. They do a post-metal style much in the vein of Pelican and Isis but with the percussive elements taking literal center stage.
Oh look, yet another Colorado band that made our 
Even though their name might make them seem like a juvenile pop-punk band with songs about farting on your mom or whatever, this three-piece from Boulder was pretty serious. Their driving melodic guitar riffs coupled with Aaron Hobbs’ distinctive voice made them stand out from the other emo-tinged bands of the time. Two of the members would later form the more austerely named Acrobat Down.
The hardcore world was first introduced to Haley Helmericks with her backing vocals on Open Hand’s “Tough Girl.” She would later bring her deep atmospheric voice to form the dark-wave-infused Snake Rattle Rattle Snake and much like the actual rattlesnakes of the Colorado landscape, SRRS’ music feels like it could attack if you fuck with it too much.
While “Dawn of the Dead” is probably the best of the Romero zombie movies, “Day of the Dead” serves as a meditation on how different personality types deal with the end of the world, and how none of that matters because the military is a bunch of dickheads.