Nicole Kidman Video About Importance of Scene Unity to Run Before Hardcore Shows

Posted on by Tim Graham

PENSACOLA, Fla. — A group of show promoters commissioned Nicole Kidman to appear in a video similar to her infamous AMC ad to spread a positive message about scene unity, confirmed enraptured sources at the video’s Pensacola Sons of Italy premiere.

“I’m actually a bit of a punk fan myself,” said Kidman while bottle-feeding a baby wallaby. “We’ve got a grand history of punk and hardcore in Australia, from The Saints to Speed. So it was a no-brainer for me to cut this ad promoting solidarity and positive mental attitude in the hardcore scene. In the video, I talk about how things just seem magical at these loud, raucous shows. I really believe it when I say, ‘Somehow, getting your ribs broken and your nose kicked in feels good in a place like this.’”

DIY show promoter Gregg Bronner said that having a movie star deliver the message up front spares the audience from having to listen to long-winded speeches from singers mid-set.

“Hardcore singers will often interrupt the flow of a show with speeches about strength, perseverance, and thinking for yourself,” said Bronner as he set up a projector. “A lot of fans complain that the speeches can grind a show’s momentum to a halt. We figured we could save a lot of time by having someone with real gravitas deliver a concise, powerful message at the beginning of the night, leaving the rest of the time for the music. Yes, some of those speeches are about important topics, but let’s be honest—most of these guys aren’t exactly Winston Churchill.”

Emerson College’s Department of Communication Studies assistant director Candace McMorrow said that many subcultures are embracing the model of the Kidman spot.

“Celebrity endorsements aren’t just for watches, perfume, and liquor anymore,” said McMorrow. “We’re seeing a marked rise in the use of celebrities to deliver genre-specific messaging. For instance, Morgan Freeman recently recorded a voice-over for an emotionally-charged video celebrating the rich history of cybergoth dance. There’s also a popular PSA featuring Jennifer Coolidge on how to safely smash fluorescent tubes, which is aimed at the backyard wrestling community.”

At press time, Kidman had wrapped production on an inspiring piece about crust punks which highlights the enduring, uniquely American traditions of train-hopping and panhandling.

We Sat Down With the Remaining Members of Poison, Which Turns Out Is All of Them

Posted on by Colleen Nerney

Whether it’s “Talk Dirty to Me,” “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” or “Nothin’ But a Good Time,” chances are you’re familiar with iconic glam rockers, Poison. The Hard Times was lucky enough to score an exclusive interview with these legends. Well, the ones who are still with us, of course.

The Hard Times: Wow, it’s amazing to even be in the same room as you guys. How are you all holding up?
Bret Michaels: Thanks so much for having us. I’m doing great. I’ve been on the reality TV circuit and I try to relax whenever I can.
Rikki Rockett: I’m hanging in there as always. Drumming at my age really takes it out of you.

I bet. I know it must be hard sitting here, especially after what happened to Bobby Dall.
Bobby Dall: I’m right here.

Oh, shit, sorry. I, uh, thought you, um, couldn’t make it in today. You okay?
Bobby Dall: I mean, yeah? I had back surgery but that was like 24 years ago.

Of course, yeah, that’s what I meant. I must have forgotten it was so long ago. Time flies. Anyway, you lot have had some infamous altercations over the years, including fights on stage and near-breakups. I wanted to ask. Are there any arguments with past members you regret?
C.C. DeVille: Ha! Yeah, most of those were my fault.
Bret Michaels: He was a real handful back in the day.

Right, absolutely. I actually meant something along the lines of things you may have said to some other members that you can’t take back or tell them you’re sorry now.
Rikki Rockett: Oh, we’re still in touch with Matt Smith and Richie Kotzen. They’re good guys.

And, um, they’re… in good health?
Bret Michaels: Yes?

Oh. What about the other guitarist?
C.C. DeVille: You mean Blues? Yeah man, he’s fine. He left on good terms. Apparently, he’s super into yoga and stuff now.
Rikki Rockett: I think he’s vegan, too.

That’s… that’s good news. Moving on! Do you think you’ll all ever be able to do another tour like you did in 2022, especially after what’s happened?
Bret Michaels: What’s happened?
C.C. DeVille: Did someone die?
Bobby Dall: I think they’re still stuck on my surgery.

Okay, look, I definitely was under the impression that at least one of you guys had kicked the bucket. It’s statistically likely. You are a hair metal band from the sunset strip after all.
Bret Michaels: We’re actually from Mechanicsburg, PA.

But weren’t you guys ripping lines of cocaine and driving drunk throughout the glory days of your career?
Poison: Yep.

After several minutes of silence, C.C. DeVille told me to go fuck myself before punching both me and Bret Michaels in the face for “good measure.”

Uncle Struggling to Explain How 100 gecs Descended from the Blues

Posted on by John Danek

TULSA, Okla. — Local elitist and retired CPA Ronnie Clayton really struggled to draw a musical thread relating the hyperpop sensations 100 gecs to the blues of yore, snickering family members reported.

“I’ve stomached tenuous arguments about how Imagine Dragons, Kendrick Lamar, and Adele all can be traced back to the blues, but none of Uncle Ron’s usual arguments work with 100 gecs,” stated a triumphant Polly Clayton, Ronnie’s niece and regular IT support guru. “He kept closing his eyes and trying to listen closely for a discernible chord progression in ‘800 db,’ but nothing ever came. That’s when his neck vein started bulging and he excused himself with a quiet rage I never heard before. I’m pretty sure he walked outside and smoked his first cigarette in 19 years.”

Mr. Clayton has been largely bedridden ever since hearing the chaotic track from 100 gecs’ debut album.

“It’s just…I don’t…Clapton is God, remember? John Mayall, where are you?” muttered Clayton, who boasts the world’s largest private Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul collection. “The gecs, how many? No 1-4-5 progression. No blues scale… pentatonic? Frightening. How do kids listen? It isn’t music. Only blues music. Doomed. Art. Bonamassa, save us. Dying now.”

100 gecs’ Laura Les admitted to some of the duo’s surprising influences.

“When Dylan and I started making music together, we were trying to recreate the Delta Blues of the 1920’s Mississippi. Turns out, we just aren’t really good at emulating that old sound no matter how hard we try,” explained Les, who recorded some of the first demos for “Money Machine” on an old resonator guitar. “Charley Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson were my favorite bluesmen when I started out, and I’d like to think that some of our songs like ‘xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_üXXx’ and ‘Doritos & Fritos’ contain their musical DNA.”

An update from the family confirms that any progress in Uncle Ron’s condition has been set back by Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ Grammy performance of “Unholy.”

Sadistic One-Hit Wonder Band Clearly Getting Off on Waiting Until Encore to Play Popular Song

Posted on by Jessica Lillian

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Indie folk-rock band Wildertown Archer is taking extreme pleasure in denying their audience the satisfaction of hearing “Rhubarb Road,” their one semi-popular hit, pained concert attendees report.

“Everyone just wants to hear that one song, and they won’t let us have it no matter what,” said Matthew Jalisco-Blair, grimacing as he finished his beer and desperately tried to peer at the setlist taped to the stage in front of him. “We’ve been standing here basically getting tortured for at least 75 minutes now. And they’re just grinning weirdly and playing everything else that none of us care about or even have heard before. What a bunch of psychos.”

Wildertown Archer lead singer Nate Coomey confirmed that he and his bandmates derive significant pleasure from forcing their concert attendees to endure extended stretches of unfamiliar songs and denying them the much longed-for release of their only radio single.

“I just love the looks on their sad little faces when we really get going,” Coomey explained. “Sometimes I’ll tease them over and over. I’ll start with a few songs that have the same opening chords as ‘Rhubarb Road.’ They’ll think I’m finally easing up and then I just hold them down again. On particularly mean-spirited nights, I’ll really sock it to them with our 17-minute experimental ballad ‘Following Her Until the End of Time.’ They’re screaming in utterly helpless pain by the fourth verse.”

According to noted entertainment psychologist Dr. Laurel H. Perugini, this behavior is a classic response to one-hit-wonders’ frustrations with the unpredictability of industry success.

“They are desperate for any power,” Perugini said. “Controlling the setlist at the expense of whatever remaining fans they might have is the only thing that satisfies them. Sadly, we have found that the risk increases at least tenfold for bands whose singular minor hit appeared in a car commercial and is now referred to as ‘that one from the Hyundai ad.’”

At press time, Wildertown Archer had closed out its encore at the Cedar Stack Lounge by playing an unrecognizable falsetto remix of “Rhubarb Road” to the seven attendees left.

I Made Peace With Capitulating to Patriarchal Beauty Standards by Shoplifting All My Skincare

Posted on by Ed Saincome

Ever since I was a perfectly symmetrical, rosy-cheeked teenager without acne, I have shunned makeup and beauty products. Makeup is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy. The purpose of any “beauty” product is to maintain the lie that our value comes primarily from how we look. I vowed to never support the beauty industry and I knew that when my wrinkles came in, I would choose to age gracefully.

But as I’ve grown older and my looks have changed, I have found it more and more difficult to get ahead in life due to the perceptions of others falsely informed by my looks. As I found fewer doors opening for me at work and in my personal life, I felt the unfortunate need arise to compromise my values in service of my day-to-day happiness. I needed to start buying into the beauty industry. “Buying,” of course, being the operative word since I’ve been stealing all my beauty products.

The silver lining to living in a society with grossly contorted ideas of how women should look is that a thirty-something wearing her natural face can go completely unnoticed at the office, a party, or even the new arrivals aisle at Sephora. Just as my dignity and personhood were stripped from me by society, so too can I strip Walgreens of its toners, mousse foundations, and hyaluronic acid serums.

The makeup and beauty debate has long been a staple of feminist in-fighting. Where falls the line between Choice Feminism and straightforward adherence to harmful social norms? I can’t answer that. What I can say is that I now have a deeper understanding of the struggle, along with deeper coat pockets crammed full of retinol.

Review: Death Cab for Cutie “Asphalt Meadows”

Posted on by Colleen Nerney

Proto-emo indie rock group Death Cab for Cutie has been in the back pocket of sad kids across the world since their debut in 1998, which, unfortunately, is before some of you were born. Those of us who remember a world without the internet, however, are thrilled that Ben Gibbard and his crew of melancholy merry men are back with 2022’s “Asphalt Meadows,” a sprawling return to form and experiment at once.

We’re less thrilled with the fact that there are zero, and I mean zero, songs about asphalt on this record.

I’m not really sure what I expected. I guess that when I was assigned to review “Asphalt Meadows,” I was excited to dig a little deeper into the world of industrial paving. Ben Gibbard has always struck me as the kind of guy who knows the difference between asphalt, concrete, and other various types of construction materials. Boy, was I wrong. With each passing track it became increasingly clear that I’d been duped by the title of this record, and not a single fucking song on this thing has the lyrical content I was so looking forward to.

Really, the more I think about this drastic oversight, the more incensed I become. My father spent his entire life building his parking lot empire from the ground up, pulling himself up by the bootstraps literally and figuratively in order to provide for me and my 17 siblings. They didn’t call him the “Concrete King of the Tri-County Area” for nothing. He kept food on the table for us with some Asphalt Meadows of his very own, if you catch my drift. And yet—not a single fucking song to pay homage to him. Amazingly disrespectful, really.

So when I say this album is a personal affront to everything me and my family stands for, I mean it. I’m appalled. I’m furious. I’m deeply disappointed. I’m sure my father is rolling in his grave.

And frankly, I’m looking for Ben Gibbard’s home address. Please DM me any leads.

Verdict: 1 out of several federal offenses I’m looking to commit

/**/

Blood Transfusion Goes Terribly Wrong After Nurses Take Type O Negative Tattoo Literally

Posted on by Tim Sheard

NEW YORK — The medical staff at New York Presbyterian Hospital are facing allegations of medical malpractice after a botched blood transfusion because of a patient’s Type O Negative tattoo, confirmed outraged family members.

“What the hell do you expect,” said Brain Gates, a resident nurse working the graveyard shift. “They wheeled the guy in after he totaled his car, and we didn’t have a lot of time to get him patched up. He lost a lot of blood, and he was delirious. When prompted to tell us his blood type, he just kept shouting ‘black, black, black, black, number one,’ and I had no clue what the fuck he was talking about. I saw the Type O Negative logo on his wrist, contacted triage, and they brought up a quart of what I thought was his blood type. Listen, I’m really sorry about all of this, but he’ll probably recover in time. And if he does I’m going to ask him to edit that tattoo so this doesn’t happen again.”

Cunningham’s parents are reeling over the botched procedure, and they believe that Gates should have done a proper line check.

“Roy has all sorts of stupid tattoos, and they’re mostly for bands and comic book shit,” said father Gary Cunningham. “He also has a tattoo for the band Ghost, which I guess we could have taken literally if he didn’t wake up from his fucking coma after the procedure. This kind of lack of attention to detail in the healthcare sector is exactly why this country is going to shit. The only thing they got right with the Type O Negative incident was that the flatline on the monitor had a striking resemblance to the logo.”

Hospital administrator Gail Simmons noted that sometimes mistakes are made in emergency situations.

“Yes, we were wrong to assume Cunningham’s blood type based off of a faded tattoo with bad line work. But when an accident victim is rushed into our section of the hospital, we have to move quickly. When blood loss is already at a critical point, we don’t have time to run all the tests,” said Simmons. “Could we have used better judgment? Yes. But, the harsh reality is that when a patient is convulsing on the floor, and they have a ‘cake and sodomy’ tramp stamp, we sometimes have to assume they’re either in diabetic shock or have something stuck up their ass.”

At press time, HR was spotted asking pressing questions about the new OBGYN’s Infant Annihilator neck tat.

Singer Celebrating 1 Million Spotify Streams Needed Back in Frozen Food Section

Posted on by Doug Kolic

WASHINGTON – Local singer Riley Wambach briefly celebrated hitting one million Spotify streams before being summoned back to the frozen food section of the grocery store where she’s been employed for 10 years, according to nearby sources purchasing suspicious amounts of Reddi-wip canisters.

“I’m fucking rich, y’all!” sobbed Wambach as she fell to her knees in an act of unbridled joy. “I’ve busted my ass for so long in the music business that I started to think it was never going to happen. And now by the grace of almighty God I’ll finally be able to quit this shitty store job and live the life I’ve always been destined to, right after I finish stocking the nearly empty ice cream section I’ve been neglecting for days. Then I can decide whether to buy the red Lambo or the yellow one. Hashtag RichPeoplesProblems!”

Fiesta Market & Deli store manager Tom Poblano believed his employee’s celebration was premature.

“Ms. Bigshot can celebrate later, right now I need her to clean up some soggy tilapia that went rank after one of the freezers seized up,” stated the clipboard-wielding boss. “I don’t have the heart to tell her that Spotify doesn’t pay shit and that she’ll still need this job to survive, just like all the other musicians who work here. Maybe I’ll give her a few minutes after she cleans that up before I point out that a service animal just took a nasty dump in front of the Bagel Bites and Hot Pockets section.”

Music expert Tracy Graham explained that streaming services don’t compensate artists enough.

“Many people mistakenly believe they’ll get rich quick by having songs on digital platforms,” explained Graham. “Just because these sites have revolutionized the way fans listen to music doesn’t mean musicians are getting their fair share. Most of them still need to keep hustling with side jobs or continue living with their parents because if there’s one thing that won’t change with the music industry regardless of new technology, it’s the capacity to fuck over hard-working creators. Those leeches are very resilient.”

At press time, Wambach was seen frantically calling her bank to question where the rest of her “fuck you” Spotify residual money was.

Opinion: Show Me Where in the Rulebook It Says a Dog Can’t Be My Only Friend

Posted on by Dan Rice

Alright, I want everyone to just settle down. I realize many of you find this unorthodox, but let’s focus on the facts. Yes, this man here is my friend, yes he is my only friend, and yes, he is a pitbull/lab mix by the name of Roscoe. So what? Show me exactly where in the rulebook it says a dog can’t be my sole friend and confidant in this world.

Go on, look it up. I’ll wait.

I wish I could assume that your dumbstruck silence indicates the matter is settled, but I am still sensing a lot of weariness here. I assure you, I checked, and this is allowed. If I were to have sex with Roscoe or ask him to marry me, you would have something. That would be illegal, and frankly wrong. I would have to concede that your protests were valid if I were romantically involved with this dog in any way, but I’m not. We’re just really good friends.

Need I remind you that I was heavily pressured to utilize the plus-one allowed to me for this work luncheon? I was reminded repeatedly that the plus-one did not need to be a significant other. At one point, I was even asked, “don’t you have a single friend who wants a free steak?” It’s not my fault that no one asked any follow-up questions when I said “Well, there is my buddy
Roscoe.” And I think you’ll find that my friend here enjoys a free steak as much as any human.

Okay okay, I can see it in your eyes. “How can a dog be your only friend?” you want to ask. “A dog can’t even talk!” Well, I’ve had a lot of friends who could talk over the years, and they all wound up either boring me or lying to me. Not Roscoe though, never a false note out of this guy. He’s loyal, his zoomies are top-notch entertainment, and if he needs something from me like treats or belly rubs he lets me know it. Roscoe doesn’t play games.

Speaking of games, don’t even try to tell me Roscoe can’t participate in the company basketball game after this because I’ve got news for you.

We Tried To See if Dead Baby Jokes Were Still a Thing and Now We’re Being Called Into HR

Posted on by Ben Friedman

With all the terrible things going on in the world, sometimes you need to laugh to keep yourself from crying. Everyone is so cynical about life and I don’t blame them! Black humor has helped us push through some bleak moments in our lives, new ones which seem to be occurring on the daily. This is why I’m surprised that my killer set of dead baby jokes at the office is being rewarded with a meeting with HR.

I figured it was safe to assume that dead baby jokes were grandfathered into the resurgence of early 2000s nostalgia like low-rise jeans and iCarly. But I guess some people who were born in the actual year of 2003 aren’t hip to the dark humor that permeated the early aughts.

Give me a break, my generation watched 9/11 happen.

If anything, I started a dialog. And that dialog apparently made its way over to HR where I’m sure they’ll make me explain “what’s so funny about it” and all that bullshit. But if I have to explain to them how many babies it takes to paint a house it’s not funny anymore!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in the mindset that people are too sensitive these days but we need to discuss where the line is drawn. I have literally seen TikTok videos making light of dead spouses and family members getting tens, sometimes thousands, of likes. But should you posit a scenario about fitting 50 babies into a bucket by way of a blender, you get uninvited from the office happy hour. And these babies aren’t even real! Who’s the real asshole here?

I’m like 99% sure people were laughing! Hell, Carol in accounting was practically laughing so hard she was crying. Seriously, she cried for a long time, all the way into the bathroom for 20 minutes. Holy hell that was a good joke. I’m sure she’ll vouch for me.

I joked my way into this, and I can joke my way out. Easy as pie! That’s made out of babies! Jesus, the jokes write themselves. I think I’ve got this, just as soon as IT gets here and they help us figure out why my ID badge and email have been disabled.