I have a little rule about reviews. “Don’t waste time talking about blogs you don’t like” has been my golden rule for a long, long time. When I was writing print ‘zines in San Antonio, I was a LOT more fearless–I’d routinely trash stuff I didn’t like. I once had a long conversation with some people from a gothity/bondage outfit called Flesh Fetish–they took issue with me for groaning about their goth night S&M lite shows at a local club called the Cameo.

I still think that stuff is silly, but today I wouldn’t bother to talk trash about it. If folks want to indulge in some light spanking in between endless repeats of “Lucretia My Reflection” and “Tragedy For You”, let ’em. (When it was all said and done, I think my biggest objection to that stuff was the way the crowd gathered round with that “Ooooh! BOOBIES!” vibe.

So all that leads me to this 80s music blog on About.com. I’ve said elsewhere that About.com is about as useful as bondage trousers on a corpse, especially for the writers who managed to score writing gigs as Guides. I have the funny feeling this writer is getting pressure from his About.com masters to steer into middle-of-the-road territory. There was a nice review of fIREHOSE which gave me hope–fIREHOSE is great fun even if they never get close to the full-on glory of the Minutemen.

But I can ONLY imagine the gulag-like conditions that exist for those who scribble for About.com–I picture some sort of steroid-enhanced hulk of a guard standing over a row of cubicles, beating the writers until they produce headlines like this actual example from the 80s music blog:

’80s Duo Hall & Oates Boasts Plenty of Quality If No Surplus of Coolness

Ok, kids…Hall & Oates might have dabbled in new wave, they might have been great for laughs, you might even have gotten lucky to them if you went to high school in the 80s…but there is NO amount of marijuana that will EVER convince me that the words COOL and HALL & OATES should EVER go together.

I feel for the guy who writes this blog, I really do. I think maybe he’s being held hostage in the hills of Columbia somewhere, writing this stuff at gunpoint in fear of his life. If you know of his whereabouts, please get in touch so we can send a rescue mission in there to get him back. Then he can start writing about The Minutemen, Polyrock,  and DEVO instead.