Anyone familiar with The Airing of Grievances (no, we are not talking about Festivus) knows that Titus Andronicus’ Patrick Stickles is not kidding around. At times, he’s a bit tormented, and possibly crazy, but honestly, a very logical, good-hearted and extremely bright young chap. So when the cool kids at VICE decided to throw an irony-fueled, 1994-themed Halloween party at a warehouse in Williamsburg and asked Titus to perform Weezer covers after Bad Brains and Jesus Lizard played, it’s safe to say it was going to be a pretty good night.

Wrong. At least according to Stickles, who wrote a very lengthy rant on the event, which, through his account, was an absolute disaster and a glimpse of a troubled generation. Exactly what you’d expect from a VICE party in a warehouse in Williamsburg on Halloween with free tequila. To be honest, no real “good,” can come from this, save another Doc Marten to the dome courtesy of Jesus Lizard’s David Yow, who always seems to be in tip-top shape. According to Stickles description of the night, Jesus Lizard was hard to enjoy due to swarming Arab Parrot wannabe’s constantly photographing every inch of cocaine/tequila debauchery—the hedonistic, depraved aesthetic that VICE has long championed in its publications, and to some extent, lived themselves for years.

While coke, annoying people, lame security, irresponsible management, phoned-in performances (courtesy of Bad Brains) and complaining from Patrick Stickles is what some people actually go to VICE parties for, the real question is why? Why do we play into this shit? We, the current youth, are a generation constantly advocating change, yet we consistently short change ourselves by playing into these moronic stereotypes, ideas that we are merely over-educated, over-privileged, irony-obsessed idiots desperately hoping to land a picture of us doing blow off one another on a party site. Sure, that sounds fun, but why limit ourselves to this when we could be doing anything, literally ANYTHING, that may, someday, to someone, make a difference. If there is one thing we should learn from the misguidance of our parent’s generation—those who set to change the world, but fell prey to dirty bank loans and scheming investments, preferring quiet comfort to making the world a better place—it’s to not do what we’re doing. If we don’t stop acting like children, we’re always just going to be children.

Stickles closes his note with a few strong words for the youngsters. “Kids, we are blowing it. Everything they say about us is true.”

Take this as a call to arms: Don’t fall into the trappings that so many have fallen into before. It wouldn’t be ironic. It would suck.

The statement that Sublime hasn’t played a show in 13 years is a bit of a misnomer for two reasons. One, the man (Bradley Nowell) who registered the Sublime trademark passed away thirteen years ago, meaning in a sense, Sublime would never play again. And two, the remaining Sublime posse, which is a very similar group (with less members and new singer Rome Ramirez) to the one that performed at Cypress Hill’s Smokeout Festival Saturday, had performed several times under the name Long Beach Dub All Stars and used Sublime material until they disbanded in 2001. However, a band billed as Sublime played said music festival this weekend, and if they just called themselves Garden Grove or something a.) everyone would assume they were a tribute band and b.) this story wouldn’t be in the news.

YouTube videos from the festival seem to prove that at least one large mass of people support this pseudo-reunion. But to be fair, if we were blazed at an event called the Smokeout Festival and some dude that sang pretty well crooned over the bassline of “Santeria” and “April 24, 1992″ we’d be pretty amped, too.

The whole situation gets touchy when Bradley Nowell’s family comes into play, who are taking legal action against bassist Eric Wilson and drummer Bud Gaugh for using the moniker. Says Brad’s family in an official statement:

“Out of respect for Brad’s wishes, we have always refused to endorse any group performing as ‘Sublime,’ and now with great reluctance feel compelled to take the appropriate legal action to protect Brad’s legacy.”

It seems unforunate that with all the cell phones and minute-by-minute e-mail checking in this world, these legacy-tarnishing matters so often come to legal action. But thus is the world we live in. The potential lawsuit brings up much larger questions about musical legacies. But in the individual case of Sublime, it seems these questions may not necessarily be answered right away.

Wilson and Gaugh have already responded to the lawsuit with a statement. “Brad’s heirs apparently do not share this vision and do not want the band Sublime to continue and tried — unsuccessfully — to file a temporary restraining order to prevent the band from carrying on. Despite those objections, we are pleased that the United States District Court has allowed us to perform as Sublime for all of our fans,” read a statement signed “Sublime.” And in another note Gaugh even directly hinted at this being a hopefully effective coping mechanism for the band to move on in a sense, musically and personally.

Legally, obviously the trademark is binding. But a band is obviously not just a trademark, and while this obviously tackles a much greyer area, Wilson and Gaugh were just as much a part of the Sublime movement as Nowell was. However, Nowell had achieved a sort of cult-icon status that made him a ubiquitous face of the movement and era.

Therefore, while the legality of the matter may continue to be debated (Nowell’s family attempted to have them disallowed from playing the festival under the name, but a U.S. district court ruled to let the band play), the decision of the fans seems like it might logically come from what Wilson, Gaugh and Ramirez do with the name. If they just form a sort of reunion tour and play some festival gigs, it hardly seem different from the Long Beach Dub All Stars project and could easily lead to the cash grab arguments. But if they take a less common path or create new musical material (which yes, would also create more controversy and debate) then it could be seen in a different light. They seem to be approaching the whole situation with a requisite amount of earnesty, but while their words seem to act as a defense and celebration of Nowell’s memory, the actions and music in the near future will surely speak much louder on the matter. (Via: SPIN)

One week and change ago the Tripwire flew to Montreal. We weren’t there for the usual reasons (hockey/steamy, French-Canadian love affairs) but rather Pop! Montreal, the very same festival whose always excellent lineup we’ve helped you watch grow longer and longer over the past few months. And instead of telling you a heap of late night tales that take us from bar to bar, band to band and one Poutine spot to the next (there was only one and thats actually a pretty good story,) we realized you’d hate us less if we told you about the one band we saw that made the trip most worthwhile. You know, a band you’re going to want to hear when you shower or drive tonight. Their name is Braids (formerly Neighborhood Council) and they are a loosely “experimental” boy girl four-piece who made their way to Montreal via Alberta. What do they sound like? This decade distilled: the psychedelic Shiatsu of Animal Collective, the expansiveness of Broken Social Scene and bit of the primitivist snap-a-longs of High Places and the Blow. They’re only wee, but this isn’t at all precious stuff. Somehow they’ve manage to sound colossal and timely all at once.

Download EP jams “Lemonade” and “Liver and Tan” below, wait for a full-length to land in early spring 2010.

Braids, Lemonade

MP3 Download

Braids, Liver and Tan

MP3 Download

Sometimes in our RSS-haze we forget that “indie rock” wasn’t always so fashionable. In fact, if you go back to early nineties, the style was a lack of style, and not in some “I’m going to wear this because no one would think that I would actually wear this” sort of way. (Look at you Mom jeans.) Rather, it was earnest, as if all indie rockers of the ’90s merely woke up, saw their jeans and put them on. It was honest. It was real. Often, it was pretty ugly. While the slacker style has surely come back into play by kids whose first CD was Bush Sixteen Stone, it just doesn’t feel as “authentic” as it did back then. Times have changed kids, but the classic t-shirt, Levi’s and All-Stars will never die. It just will never look as cool as it did on these dudes.

You could even be a fat dude in shorts and that was cool…even in Europe! (Fun fact, pretty sure Ira Kaplan has been swapping between the same two t-shirts since Yo La Tengo began in 1984.)

As Pavement demonstrate, your clothes did not have to “fit,” let alone be “form fitting.” Also note, white long sleeve tee. God I miss the ’90s.

Sonic Youth wear coats. Long leather jackets, black and purple nylon ski parkas and denim jackets with leather collars.

As for video fashion, Chavez may have put it all out on the table when they shot their video for “Break Up Your Band” on a trans-gender hosted talk show featuring suburban moms, stripping firemen, kimono clad rickshaw drivers, loin cloth covered dudes in bear masks, and a bevy of gigantic collars.

Something tells me Veruca Salt will opt against the floral crop tank top when they inevitably reunite. (Notice the gold microphones. Oh, Glastonbury.)

Lou Barlow in Germany in 1995 looks like my fifth grade Earth Science teacher in Germany in 1995.

On the other hand, J. Mascis looks pretty much exactly the same.

Ever read an album review of your 14th favorite band online and thought “Whoever wrote this is a flaming pile of monkey turds. I could burp out a better review than this.’ Well burp away, my friends. Or in more technical terms…

It’s possible that over the past several weeks you’ve noticed the reviews slow to a trickle around these parts. We had our reasons! Cookies weren’t involved! Okay, maybe they were! All of us at Tripwire HQ are pleased to introduce to you today a new chapter in our “take” on music criticism—by handing over the keys. Starting this week and every Tuesday hereafter, we’ll be posting a full album to stream through our friends over at LaLa. What we’d like you to do is lend us your brainwaves and tweet us whatever crosses your mind while listening. Maybe there’s a riff you can’t get out of your head. A lyric? A moment? An image? If you’re feeling ambitious, spend your 124 characters reviewing the record as a whole. Just toss those tweets over to us at @thetripwire and by the end of the week, we’ll cobble together and share the beautiful mess of a madlib it creates. So without further adieu, we give you… Tweet Release.

So not only do we have this sweet announcement that puts you fine folks in control (well, as much control as you can establish in 140 characters), but we’ve got the new project from Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) and Collection of Colonies of Bees, Volcano Choir’s Unmap, to stream, just released today. Here’s the stream and here’s our Twitter in case you forgot. Now listen to the album and start tweet-tweeting.