Something you may not know about me: I am the worlds foremost authority on "Doug Rock". This is because I coined the phase and can apply it as I see fit.
This doesn't mean I randomly assign it on a whim. It describes a very specific kind of evil. My dream is to one day be able to search Wikipedia and find an entry on Doug Rock. Until that day. Here's what such an entry might look like:
**Doug Rock** What is Doug Rock? While the quality of most music is a matter of personal taste, it's a scientific fact that Doug Rock is some of the worst music on the planet. Some of its defining qualities are:
-- Band members who take themselves way too seriously. -- Crunchy guitars backing up wussified, cry-baby, lyrics. -- An obsession with power ballads.
Doug Rock bands are still fascinated by the "tender aqoustic riff" to set up the "crashing electric guitar climax". This trick is to Doug Rock, what arpeggios are to 80's metal:
It's a good trick, but lazy. It's like in movies when they kill the dog. Killing the dog makes everyone cry. It doesn't matter how good the movie is or what its about. Killing the dog makes us all sad. But you cant kill the dog in every movie, and Doug Rock bands leave behind mountains of dog carcasses.
Before I continue it would probably be prudent to talk about where the term Doug Rock comes from. A good place to start would be to ask, "which came first, Doug or Doug Rock?" It would appear that Doug came first...some 33 years or so ago.
Doug Rock bust onto the scene in the late 90's...a terrible by-product of those sensitive times.
The term "Doug Rock" was born (as you might have guessed) after I met my friend Doug and realized he had a special talent for enjoying the worst music on the face of the planet. He's not a bad guy...but he likes evil music. If you could smell music...Doug's music would smell like the worst farts you've ever smelt.
The tricky thing about Doug Rock is that its not a simple matter of looking at Doug's ipod and simply applying DR label to every thing you see there. Doug likes some good music. To help you avoid that sort of pitfall lets get into the history of Doug Rock and give you some classic examples.
Surprising Beginings:
A friend of mine asked me the other day, "Is Pearl Jam Doug Rock?". It's a good question with a subtle and complicated answer. The short version is: no. Pearl Jam is NOT Doug Rock, but Pearl Jam is RESPONSIBLE for Doug Rock. It's not the first time something bad started out as something good. The devil was the best of all angels before falling into hell. This is a good way to look at Pearl Jam. A signature band of the 90's; highly successful and critically acclaimed.But with their distinctive style and great success came the copy cats. Bands like Stone Temple Pilots released albums that were pretty similar. For the record, STP avoids the Doug Rock label...but only just barely.
Then in 1993...Candlebox arrives on the scene. Their insipid and uninspired melodrama heralds the arrival of a new style of music. An atrocity that we now know as Doug By the way, Candlebox's web-site is laughably addressed as: "candleboxrocks". Seriously. That's not a joke. Someone should go to prison for that.
Anyway their first album went quadruple platinum and music execs started falling over themselves to sign every long-haired, Nancy-boy in a flannel.
The next year Kurt Cobain died and to fill the void we got even more pretenders. Topping the list is the "Live" and "Bush" (these bands could be better named as "Pretentious" and "Vapid" respectively)
Live:
Bush:This is really the "golden age" of Doug Rock. If you could pull off that Vedder-ish "mumbly-growl" and sing about how pathetic you were, you could probably get yourself a polished music video and a gold record.
We close out this era in the late 90's with Creed. Who give us the same old shitty songs and cement the idea that mono-syllabic, one-word band-names go hand in hand with dull music.
What a bunch of fuckin wankers!
Seriously if you've watched all these and you HAVEN'T stabbed yourself in the ears yet...your either incredibly strong, or simply lobotomized.
Finally 2000 came around. I'd have hoped that the new Millennium (which I suppose was technically still a year off) would bring about the end of Doug Rock...but it was only the beginning. In fact 2001 gave us the breakout hit for what is really the GOLD STANDARD in Doug Rock. As you might expect...this musical sin comes from the same country that gave us Bryan Adams...that's right. Canada. People in Canada are just too nice to do rock n' roll correctly. For your consideration...I give you.
Nickleback:unbelievable. On the other hand...Nickleback shows us why the Portuguese are such a great people:
awesome. awesome. awesome. Hats off to you Portugal. You did what had to be done.
Nickleback ushered in a whole new era. Some bands try to disguise themselves as "nu Metal"...but they can't hide from me. I know Doug Rock when I see it. I'm talking to you P.O.D. you and your fucking "Charger's Anthem" that jinxed the bolts in the playoffs of 2006/07.
P.O.D. is actually a sorta subset of Doug Rock. It's a specialized set of crap that includes shitty rap-rock bands that wish they could be "Rage Against the Machine" (as opposed to Pearl Jam). Your Limp Bizkits, your Salivas, your Linkin Parks. They all belong to this subset. It's not Doug Rock "proper" but it's certainly worth mentioning.
Now that we are officially moving in the latter half of the first decade of this century...there are sadly no signs that Doug Rock is letting up:
Puddle of Mudd:3 Doors Down:
I mean it's unbelievable. I could go on forever. There's even an American Idol Doug Rock:
I mean...it just gets worse and worse and it must be stopped. Now I know that we all have guilty pleasures. I'll listen to a Doug Rock song now and then. I mean...the shit's got unintentional comedic value that is off the charts. But I think the time has come for us to take a cue from our brothers and sisters in Portugal. It's time to start throwing rocks people. Aim for the shaggy dome.
I am a workin' fool lately. All those late nights, weekend grinds, really started to wear a fella down. All that time in the office seemed to obliterate my workout regime/active lifestyle or whatever and it just made me tired and grumpy. I can't remember being so irritable in a long time. This last project culminated in one all-nighter right before the deadline that finally knocked me down.
Its yet another reminder that I am in fact getting older like a normal person. I just can't bounce back from that shit anymore. It took me about 3 days to get normal.
So where was I? I think I was going to tell you a Sean-do story.
I have long history of beating Sean at video games (yes, what an accomplishment!). Back in the 8-bit era we used to play a lot of "2-player" Super Mario Brothers. I put "2-player" in quotes because Super Mario Bros was as a 2-player game in the same way that 2 people masturbating, in separate rooms, at separate times, is sex.
Okay so maybe a different metaphor would sound less like incest.
Anyway. 2-player Super Mario Bros was intensely boring since you weren't really competing with one another. You were just taking turns at the regular one-player game. You didn't get to play until the other guy died. This created a fun little meta-game for me called, "How to trick Luigi-Sean into killing himself".
Me: I'm telling you Sean, I read it in Nintendo Power. You jump down that third hole and you actually get 10 free lives. It's awesome. I did it yesterday.
Sean: You are such a liar.
Me: No dude I'm telling you. THIS time I'm telling the truth. 10 free lives.
Now-a-days Sean and I compete most often in Madden Football. Madden video football is actually the game that got me interested in real NFL football and I've been playing it pretty avidly since 1994 or so. I've had a long relation ship with the game. Ran a few work tournaments (which I never managed to win...folded in the play-offs every year), and had a number of epic games with Discostup, I'm no expert, but a decent player.
I'm not sure what bit we are in these days. I think they stopped keeping track with the N64.
Regardless of the bits, the one-sided video-contest between my brother and I continues. I'm pretty sure Seando has never beaten me in Madden.
Recently both of us picked up PS3s. Sean was here in town visiting and found out that I had yet to purchase Madden this year and started talking all cocky. I don't know if he thought he was safe...or maybe he figured he'd gotten a jump on me since I hadn't played in a while...but he actually uttered these words, "Too bad you don't have Madden so I could beat the shit out of you in it."
We were in the car on the way to the game store within five minutes of this comment.
So how'd those first games go? Well I was indeed a lil rusty. I hadn't really played much madden in the past couple years. I couldn't remember any of my defensive adjustment tricks -- Line shifts, and hot routes...all that stuff was out the door. In the old days I had my offense set up and good to go. A scripted opening of 10 or so plays. I could read defenses had my dump-off receivers planned and could execute in the running game (although I always struggled against the zone-blitz).
None of that was firing on all cylinders that day.
I beat Sean in our first game by something obscene. like 30 points or something. These are 5 minutes quarters we are talking about here.
We played 3 or 4 games like that with one exception (Sean had a lead on me for 3 quarters only to give up like 3 or 4 touchdowns in the final 2 minutes. It was horrible...I couldn't stop laughing).
So Sean gave up for the moment. I thought it was over. But he calls me a few days later and tells me he wants to get on on-line game going. Fine.
Let me say one thing about Madden on-line. What a suck-fest. Everything that is fun and exciting about Madden football is destroyed by online competition. It's slow, and laggy and just plain stupid.
Sean loves it though...even when I continue to slaughter him over and over again. Marshall Faulk comes on before each game to predict the score. I think he bases his predictions partially on the teams each player chooses but also on their past performance as a "coach". Faulk was starting to give me +25 points in his pre-game prognostications.
The one good thing about on-line madden is that I have a working microphone hooked up to my PS3 and Sean doesn't. Which means I can trash-talk Sean the whole game and he's powerless to strike back. Its even more fun to imagine him throwing temper tantrums after giving up yet another red-zone interception.
Don't take this gloating the wrong way. Sean's winless online last I checked...and that's in like 20 or 30 games.
So if you are looking to pad your madden stats a lil (and you actually like playing on-line) look up "punkace". He'll be playing the Niners and dropping F-bombs like no tomorrow.
