That's Entertainment

From the Twin Cities Pulse, Keith Pille promotes rising young St. Paul music sensation Lucky Jeremy:

Here's somebody who serves up punk the way it was meant to be: bitter, surly, and bitingly funny. There's a lot of stupidity in the world, and he's both conscious of it and more than willing to tell you what he thinks of it.

Bitter, surly, AND willing to tell us all how stupid we are. Does the Howard Dean campaign need a house band? And angry, impudent, teen-aged know-it-all arrogance isn't all Lucky Jeremy offers the listener:

The album itself is full of thundering drums, walls of guitar and howling vocals, with an overall effect that sounds a bit like the guy from Violent Femmes singing along with mid-period Hüsker Dü. Nobody’s chirping about how bright tomorrow is around here.

Thundering, howling despondency too? If it turns out this guy is a gender bending former employee of Cheapo Records prone to setting his guitar on fire, he could be the next great Twin Cities critics' darling. Yes, I'm predicting we might just have the next Big Ditch Road on our hands. And I don't think even they can write songs like this:

...even the song titles are incendiary, with names like "Harlem Burned for Your Shuffle," "Your Schtick Is Inspiring (Asshole)," and "Nihilism Country Tune." Hell, even the album's thank-you note takes time to throw some mud at "all the vacuums that suck the life out of people and all the assholes who vote Republican."

Lucky Jeremy has been hailed as a man willing to tell us what he thinks of all the stupidity in the world. It's good to see he's writing about a topic he appears to know a lot about.

UPDATE: Looks like the Twin Cities Pulse has fallen behind the curve of hipness (no wonder they're the alternative alternative weekly). The king maker of local surly and bitter musicians, the City Pages, was on the bandwagon of Lucky Jeremy months ago. They named his album one of the 10 Best of 2003. If based on the Pulse's description alone you were concerned that it wasn't bitter, surly, and cacophonous enough for your tastes, the City Pages puts away all doubt:

Jeremy yelps out anthems about being in the dumps with the mumps and adolescent pumps. His acid lyrics eat away the scenery over a hardcore boogie of dark metal chords, glam rock sneer, even the occasional Turf Club twang.

With stories about smoky bars and "drowning in 10,000 lakes," he captures the glory and the grime that comes with drinking your way through a dark winter.