It’s Sunday, in this hemisphere, again, so you know what that means: it’s time for me to tell you that your awesomely awesome vegetarian that does awesome things for this Sunday is Doug Martsch of Built to Spill.   When people ask me the seemingly simple question of what indie rock is, I actually always point to two bands, both of which are on major labels: Modest Mouse, and Built to Spill.   Martsch’s outfit is the indie band made good, in that they’ve been around forever, and got signed to Warner Brothers, and continues to make fabulous records that don’t compromise.   So what do they sound like?  Let me show you!  Wait.  Huh?

I just realized that finding good clips may be difficult as the band doesn’t have any music videos.   Anyhow, that’s probably their most popular song, “Car,” off their first record There’s Nothing Wrong With Love. Read the rest of this entry >>

It’s Sunday again, which means it’s time for your Sunday Afternoon Vegetarian Awesomeness Post, and today it’s brought to you be John K. Samson of The Weakerthans.   If you don’t know The Weakerthans, you may have at least heard them as the credits rolled over Wedding Crashers.   That was a song called “Aside,” and it sounds a lot like this:

Samson was once in the well-named band Propaghandi, and decided to front his own rock outfit that’s based around relatively simple music with engaging lyrics. Read the rest of this entry >>

Your Sunday Afternoon Vegetarian(s!) of awesome Vegetarianishness are the guys from blink-182, your favorite pop-punk band.   Yes, it seems (and again, this is with some really poorly-done research) that Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus, and Travis Barker are all vegetarians.   I’ll talk a little about the band itself, and then a side project or two that I actually might find to be a little better.

Being one of the few truly successful bands to come out of San Diego, blink-182 made their best music right before breaking up, on their eponymous album.   So, instead of giving you a video of, say, “Dammit,” let’s try “Always.”  I’ll just go ahead and throw in that the girl in the video is Sophie Monk, who is also a vegetarian.   Sometimes, these things practically write themselves.

I’ll get back to blink in a minute or two, but let’s talk about side projects. Read the rest of this entry >>

Your Sunday Evening Awesome Vegetarian Post of Evening Awesomeness on a Sunday (I forgot about it today, okay?  Cut me some slack.) is Eddie Argos, frontman for Art Brut.   Now, I’m going to tell you upfront I’m fudging this one a little bit, as I’m basing my claim to his vegetarianism on this quote: “I regularly flit between meat-eater, vegetarian and vegan. I’m very indecisive.”  I say, GOOD ENOUGH, because two out of three ain’t bad.

So, back to the music.   I use the word “frontman” for Argos in an abstract way, because he is so, so much more.   In his British speak-sing accent, Argos hollers about anything and everything.   Live, he goes into the crowd and dances, or speaks directly to the crowd about the necessity of modern art while the band plays on behind him, or starts songs with a big, “Art Brut ready?  GO!”  Let’s have a look, shall we?

That was “Formed a Band,” which was the first track off their first album, Bang Bang Rock and Roll.   You can’t really argue with a man who tells us, “We wrote the song that made Israel and Palestine get along.”  I mean, that’s skill. Read the rest of this entry >>

Your Sunday Afternoon Awesome Vegetarian Post of Awesome Vegetarianness is Johnny Marr, former guitarist for The Smiths and current member of Modest Mouse.   Now, I could actually talk about Marr’s most famous band, but whenever I talk about The Smiths, I get the uncontrollable urge to try and find Morrissey and beat him up.   WE GET IT.  You’re sad.   Go home.

So, let’s talk about Modest Mouse instead.   Marr surprised everyone by joining the band a few years ago, as Modest Mouse and The Smiths had never been mentioned in the same sentence together, ever.   The creative force behind Modest Mouse is Isaac Brock, who is not a vegetarian, as far as I know.   He is, however, possibly insane.   I would probably bet money on it.   But he can sure write a good song.   Here’s a non-video for “Trailer Trash,” off of Lonesome Crowded West, which happens to be my favorite album of theirs.

That’s pretty, isn’t it? Read the rest of this entry >>

It’s Sunday, which means that it’s time for your Sunday Evening Super Awesome Vegetarian Post of Awesome Vegetarianism, and this week it’s the one, the only, the incomparable ”Weird Al” Yankovic!  I was debating whether or not to use Mr. Yankovic for this series because, well, it’s Weird Al, but I realized that most of you probably haven’t really paid attention to him in a while, and missed his parody of “Trapped in the Closet,” which he calls “Trapped in the Drive-Thru.”  He actually did an 11-minute parody of R. Kelly.  It’s amazingly amazing and awesomely awesome.  Enjoy:

I am really impressed with that.  Maybe too much.  Now, parodies aside, Weird Al always wanted to be known for his original songs, which take up half of each of his albums.  Of course, I’m not sure he meant “Harvey the Wonder Hamster” to be what he’s remembered for. Read the rest of this entry >>

I am terribly ashamed that I have not yet chosen John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats as our Super Awesome Sunday Vegetarian Post of Awesomeness yet, and am now doing what I can to make amends.   So let me be perfectly clear: if there is just one post of mine you ever read in its entirety, or listen to all the music, please make it this one.   Because the Mountain Goats (really just Darnielle for the most part) deserve your attention.   I’m actually having trouble figuring out where to begin, my adulation for this band is so intense.

Let’s start with this quote from The New Yorker: John Darnielle is “America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist.”  Let’s test that hypothesis:

Yup.   And that one’s autobiographical.   In fact, his lyrics are, much of the time, more important than the music he places under them. Read the rest of this entry >>

So for the Sunday super-awesome vegetarian posts so far, we’ve gone through Ted Leo, Ian MacKaye, and Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Rós. Today we’re going for what may be seen as an obvious choice: Peter Buck and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. I don’t think I’m really going to catch any of you saying, “What is this ‘R.E.M.’ band you speak of, and where do you find these underground groups?” Well, bear with me here. R.E.M. may have been around for almost 30 years now, but my best guess is that you may have stopped paying attention to them sometime around Monster came out. Which means you might have missed this song, about Kurt Cobain and terribly touching:

Later-era R.E.M., though entirely different from the jangly rock they became famous for, is some of the most beautiful music they’ve ever created. Read the rest of this entry >>

Your Sunday Evening Awesome Vegetarian Post for today (the first two have been Ted Leo and Ian MacKaye) comes to us all the way from Iceland in the form of Jonsi Birgisson, better known as the lead singer of Sigur Ros.

Sigur Ros has become more and more a household name, which is pretty impressive for a band from Iceland that sings mostly in a made-up language (they call it “Hopelandic”). Also, they do things like name an album ( ) and don’t title their tracks all the time. Here is Untitled Track #8 from the album ( ). There’s no video, but listen to the full thing and be blown away.

If you got through all of that, you know how gorgeous the music is. Read the rest of this entry >>

Your Sunday Afternoon Awesome Vegetarian post today (last week’s Sunday Morning Awesome Vegetarian post (though not announced as such) was Ted Leo) is a gentleman by the name of Ian MacKaye. Anyone who knows anything about the hardcore scene knows MacKaye as one of the guitarists/singers/songwriters of Fugazi, who can be seen here rocking very hard to “Furniture” (he’s the one singing, hence choosing this song).

MacKaye and the rest of Fugazi do (or did - they’re on “hiatus”) all the right things when it comes to being in a band - they created their own label instead of signing to one. They don’t merchandise with shirts, posters, or anything like that. They only play all-ages shows, and they refuse to charge more than six bucks a ticket and ten bucks a CD. MacKaye and company feel that everyone should be able to enjoy the music. Read the rest of this entry >>