Show us your discs! Brian Cruse!

Show Us Your Discs! Episode 2. Featuring Brian Cruse! Filmed by Johnny Gillette and Dave Reaves. Edited By Dave Reaves. Hosted by some douchebag.

Show me your discs! Episode 1!

The debut of The Washed Up Hipster's "Show Me Your Discs" series. We rummage through local favorite, Brian Shaw's record collection. Hosted by local douchebag, Jeramy Lowe.  Filmed and edited by local awesome dude, Jonny Gillette

You're Not Funny and Nobody Likes You!

I am a quitter. It's a fact. When situations graduate to a certain level of difficulty, I tend to convince myself that they weren't that terribly important to me in the first place. It just seems easier to feign an initial lack of conviction than it does to be steadfast in the face of mounting adversity. It's a character flaw, I know. It's also the main tenet of hipsterdom: The importance of NOT being earnest.

There's What's Right, and There's What's Right...

Nicolas Cage is the star of one of my favorite movies of all time. In Raising Arizona, he played H.I. McDunough, a career criminal who seesawed hilariously between "recidivism" and the pressure from his new wife to settle down. Cage's quirks were perfectly suited to the Coen Brothers' offbeat humor and it seemed like he would have been poised to become a formidable movie star. And he was. For a while. Sort of.

You Didn't Find That!

I walked into CD Alley in Chapel Hill at one point in 1997 as I often did, with an excess of free time, and very little money. Money was tight, but I needed new music. I scavenged the used vinyl and discs hoping for a gem that had slipped through the cracks, but this didn't feel like the time to give Bongwater a chance. Already a bit disappointed, I walked toward the exit only half-heartedly perusing the new releases.

You're Doing It Wrong

In theory, Owen O'Donnell and Jimmy Guterman's book, “The Worst Rock-And-Roll Records of All Time: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate”, sounded fascinating. As a fan of all things “hater-related”, I expected to see scathing indictments of beloved records that prompted never ending discussions with people who would only half hear me out. While some of the top 50 was bothersome at best,(The inclusion of Greatest Hits collections from America, Donovan, and Journey, respectively, all warranted double takes), there was certainly no outrage to be found.

Survivors and Liars: Two New Perspectives on 9/11

Jeramy recreates his reaction from 11 years ago with original newspaper and coffee cup. 

When I woke up on September 11, 2012, I checked my facebook news feed over coffee as I always do. After seeing multiple posts regarding the eleventh anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attack ever perpetrated on American soil, I thought to myself, “Ha. Looks like I forgot.” But I didn't. By sheer coincidence, I had watched not one, but two documentaries on the subject the night before. Coincidence may not be the right word, though. I've been at least mildly obsessed with 9/11 since it happened.

Tremendously Tepid

Give Me Talent Or Give Me Luck!!!

Armchair critics like to bandy about the terms “overrated” and “underrated” whimsically, and often without validity. It's always difficult to parse, given that we now are forced to share the same air with people who genuinely find “Call Me Maybe” substantive, and beyond reproach. It's not that those people are wrong. Stupid? Maybe. Vapid? Probably. But, not wrong. You can not tell someone that their response to an “artistic” expression that they connect with is flat out incorrect. You're essentially denouncing a key component of the human condition based solely on what you, as a person, find palatable.