ANNOYING PEOPLE IN MUSIC

I don't know if the band Fall Out Boy can get anymore annoying. Not only does their music suck, but I hate the way they and other bands get attention.

Following a promotional idea of the also annoyingly-named All-American Rejects who, last Spring, gave away an exclusive live DVD if you wasted a certain amount of money at American Eagle clothing stores. Now, if you buy the new FOB CD and go to an Aeropostale clothing store, you get a "limited edition exclusive band T-shirt." Wow. That rocks.

Okay, granted that's small, but I think the annoyingness of bass player Pete Wentz is enough to make one sickened by the band. After sending a girl cell phone pics of his piece (I guess he thought she would, naturally, keep them to herself), the band got even more "accidental" promotion. Also, in a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine, the band was featured on the cover and Pete, being a whore, posed shirtless (as if he had something to show off). All this might be more tolerable if the band didn't suck so much.

In unrelated news, one of the most anticipated reunion tours of the summer came to a screeching halt when it became public that a makeshift Van Halen was canceling its reunion plans. At the end of last year, there was loads of fuss in the music community about there being “big Van Halen news in 2007.” To some, this was the release of the newest official Van Halen guitar (a replica of the red one with black and white stripes from when the band used to release albums). For many, it was the band getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For many more, the biggest announcement had to be the attempt of another reunion with David Lee Roth for a summer tour.

Now, I know I’ll take many verbal lashings from the guitar playing community, among others, but I was beyond neutral when I heard about this. At this time, they're all aged has-beens. The last Van Halen album of original material was released in 1998 and as much as some fans bitched about how they didn’t like Sammy Hagar in the band, this collaboration with ex-Extreme singer Gary Cherone was really the pits. In the twenty-two years since Roth left the band, he has released all of six solo albums and appeared on a bluegrass tribute to Van Halen, singing songs he originally sung but in a bluegrass format. Sad. This doesn’t sound like a real workhorse of a band as much as middle-aged “rock stars” looking to cash in on fans who have been waiting over twenty years to see this lineup on stage again. There are two flaws with this: 1) the guys in the band have aged and are no longer as spry as they were in the 80’s so the show won't be as exciting as some may remember, and 2) it’s not even a full reunion because bass player Michael Anthony was fired from the band a while back. Eddie’s son, Wolfgang (eesh), would be handling bass duties. Now, what I’ve heard of the Van Halens leads me to believe they’re not the easiest pair to get along with and now there will be another one in the mix. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Well, it doesn’t matter now as the tour was canceled shortly after it was announced. Eddie is still an alcoholic and David is still whatever he is so rehearsals didn’t even work out. Even the “greatest hits” compilation from the Roth era was scrapped since there was no tour to promote it. Rats. I think the band should give up trying to reunite with Roth and Hagar since they’ve done it twice with the former and once with the latter and it has never lasted beyond a few short months and a few forgettable new songs recorded in an attempt to sell more copies of two separate "hits" compilations already on the market. It’s time for the band that was Van Halen to call it quits for good.

Blasphemy, I know.