oooh the horrors of victory records!!!

This is actually a couple weeks old, but a disgruntled former employee, Ramsey Dean, from Victory Records fired off about the company in a million-word tirade calling the label and Tony Brummel every name in the book.

It's a pretty good read, actually. Check it.

I'm surprised that Dean would even attach his name to this piece. That's pretty ballsy. If there's anything I've learned it's that a) Victory is a notoriously litigious label and b) no one walks away from a libel or slander lawsuit unless they're Oprah.

I'm not at all shocked by the contents of Dean's article, in fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any independent label that didn't model itself after major label excesses and such. This is especially true of pop-punk genre labels, as they are currently finding much of their rosters picked at and repackaged for mainstream acceptance.

This situation has me thinking, "Do bands even need labels anymore?" With the relevance of sites like Purevolume, Myspace and Facebook, bands are once again relying on word of mouth to get themselves out there. P2P sites are the new tape trading forums and blogs are the new zines. As the music industry is collapsing on itself, one has to wonder, is it even worth a damn to say, "My band is signed to ____."? The way I see it, it's more relevant to brag about how many MySpace friends you can get to go to your crappy show on a Wednesday night.

kate voegele = fake ass michelle branch

Kate Voegele
"Don't Look Away"
(MySpace)

There's absolutely no reason to listen to Kate Voegele's debut long player on MySpace Records, "Don't Look Away." From the opening chords of the first track, "Chicago," the rest of the album moves at a snail's pace, heavily borrowing from Michelle Branch.

Here are some quick facts about this album:

• Kate Voegele is not that hot.
• Kate Voegele does the Katie Holmes-lip curl-thing, which is worth a download of the album cover.
• Kate Voegele couldn't sing her way out of a paper bag.

This is absolutely horrid. Being on MySpace Records, I have this suspicion that Voegele's fans are either jockish dudes, creepy old men or empowered young girls whose entire CD collection is made up of shit like Hannah Montana, Aly & AJ and the Cheetah Girls. Don't let Tom persuade you into spending your money or wasting precious time trying to listen to this poor excuse of an album. Kate Voegele is jut a fake ass Michelle Branch.

triumphing over adversity: the shitty year we called 2006

2006, the 2K6, 2 grand seis, two dot dot nickel plus one. It was mostly bullshit. At least as pop culture was concerned.

We were dumbed down with the likes of "Survivor: Race War," a shittier season of "America's Next Top Model," and a full-length album by the world's most famous DNA Dumpster. Yep, just another year in America.

Even with all that crappy shit, Chasing Coolness still got to have fun at the expensive of overhyped shitbags like Lady Sovereign, The Rock, and Clay Aiken. I also got to constantly write about the new Brand New album, even though they had Interscope's money behind them.
Other notable things that will end up on a VH-1 "I Love the..." special: Snakes on a Plane, Weezer's break-up, Evertan Lohan's short-lived DJ career.

What's to look forward in the year I'll dub, "tha two-thou siete?" Probably more of the same ol' shite. With that said (as if anything could save this rather lazy post), I'll leave you with a video that best encapsulates the year: