Rocks Off covered Eric Clapton's "Layla" and several other awful updates in January.

Sometimes an artist hits it big with one great song. Real big, real fast. Before they know it, they're the hot-button item, on the lips of the hip and influential across the world.

Of course, a sudden rise to fame is usually followed by a meteoric collapse, and if not that then a much more gradual but no less saddening decline. Just taking an example from this very list: Nobody in their right mind could say that Motley Crue was a one-hit wonder. Yet once grunge killed the hair-metal excess of the '80s, the Crue tried everything they could do recapture the heat they had in their heyday. Quite unsuccessfully, might I add.

Now, obviously they're still hugely successful and can pack a stadium full of nostalgic suburbanites, but do you even know if the Crue are still writing and recording new music? Do you care? I had to look it up, and it's kind of my job to know that shit. (Yeah, I know, Craiggers: you're eagerly awaiting Saints of Los Angeles Part 2. Yes, I'm sure the 2008 album is underrated. Just go with the premise here.)

So what do you do when the natural cycle of rise and decline has you yearning for the days of relevance? Why, you go back to the well, of course. You dig up a big hit, hopefully your biggest, and update it for a modern age. Hey, people loved it once, why wouldn't they love it again?

Here are several reasons why they wouldn't.

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williamhkennedy.com

Stanton LaVey

Friends and enemies, music videos are an enduring passion of ours, both filming them ourselves and reporting on the best that we come across year after year. We think the medium has only become better and better with technology being made easier and cheaper for the average independent artist to master as well as the range that YouTube gives for that work to spread globally.

Now, videos can be expensive, epic affairs such as the Cradle of Filth's "Lilith Immaculate," or they can be cheap and easy shoots like the 71s "Get Up and Dance." We judge the final product not on its flashiness, but on its originality and how well it fits the song. Still, we'll admit that the slicker works get more attention, and therefore understand the need to try and raise money for equipment, props, etc.

We encourage you not to follow the path set out by Stanton LaVey, grandson of the founder of the Church of Satan Anton LaVey, who was himself a pretty awesome musician. Stanton's plan is to hold his Facebook hostage for donations.

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Photo by Jason Wolter

Jason Isbell (left) and Amanda Shires (right) are both more deserving than Chorney.

The small world of Americana music is all a-twitter over New Jersey woman Linda Chorney's nomination for a Grammy in the Americana category. In case you haven't been following the story, Chorney discovered a way to game the system and managed to convince quite a number of Grammy voters (who obviously are a little under-educated and under-exposed to the Americana genre) to vote for her tepid album, Emotional Jukebox, to get it on the final ballot in spite of it not having sold a single unit so far according to Sound Scan, the official industry tabulator of album sales.

According to interviews she's given, Chorney seems to have very little working knowledge of Americana or the artists in it. The Americana Music Association, which normally issues a boilerplate congratulatory statement to all the nominees, has not done so this year and speculation is that the association is not happy about Chorney's nomination since she is not a member of the organization and has never attended any of the annual events.

Frankly, we don't care if she's a member of the AMA or not; what bugs us about Chorney's gameswomanship is that she has knocked a number of exemplary albums out of a chance to win. And we'll bet she hasn't heard a damned one of them. So here's a list for you, Linda, of people you are basically screwing over. Like we said, do the right thing and withdraw your nomination.

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The comments sections on several articles about Linda Chorney, the woman who gamed the system and social networked her way onto the final Grammy ballot in the Americana category, tend to be pretty negative, although Chorney's publicist, husband and a few friends are trying to staunch the flow of irate bile that has gushed like BP's Gulf well last year.

Lonesome, Onry and Mean has been following Americana music since long before we first went to work in country radio in the early Seventies, and we've never witnessed anything quite as shameful as Chorney's calculated internet march to the Grammy ballot. We were revolted by our first listen to Chorney's tepid folky Emotional Jukebox. We can think of a handful of women in Houston who could kick Chorney's musical ass with one arm behind their backs.

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The subtle front page of Chorney's website.

As if the Grammys didn't have enough credibility issues, NARAS, the organization that controls the process, has left a loophole large enough for a complete unknown to manipulate her way onto the final ballot in the Americana category.

The news broke two days ago in Variety that virtual unknown Linda Chorney had employed the organization's interactive Grammy 365 site to connect with voting members and get her music heard. Somehow she got enough members to vote for her to get her album Emotional Jukebox on the final ballot with Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Ry Cooder, and Lucinda Williams, who have collected among themselves 23 Grammys.

On one hand, we have to applaud Chorney for her effort and determination and for her ability to work the system to her advantage. On the other hand, after hearing her music, we want to projectile vomit.

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dedica.la

Life is filled with ups and downs, and music is no exception. Just as the rock and roll renaissance of the '60s and '70s gave way to the mindless era of disco, the depth and fury of the punk and grunge movements eventually degenerated into the watered-down genre commonly referred to as nu-metal.

Described by Urban Dictionary as the "direct result of Metal getting completely blasted at a bar and screwing Emo in the back alley, then allowing the resulting child to be raised by an angst-y teenage girl," the category has taken a beating over the years for what many feel are lobotomized lyrics, uncomplicated melodies, and deliberately misspelled band names that read like a preteen text message.

But no nu-metal characteristic is more easily identified than the similarities in physical appearance among the artists, a laundry list of bad hair and and unfortunate clothing decisions that seem to be a universal theme throughout the genre. Rocks Off determined ten of the most common, and listed them below.

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Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray

This article was originally simply supposed to be "Sting's 4 Douchiest Moments," but while researching it, a funny thing happened. Rocks Off started to notice that, for every time Sting did something that made us cringe, he'd also done something that made us like him again.

We were torn; we can't just rag on him like he's Chad Kroeger, Scott Stapp, Fergie, or someone else with absolutely no artistic merits. It seems unfair to pretend like the guy who wrote the terrible adult-contemporary techno classic "Desert Rose" didn't also write post-punk rippers like "So Lonely."

So yes, we're going to look at some of the times Sting was a bit of a prick. But hold off on those angry comments until the end, Sting fans, because we're also going to look at Sting being a badass.

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Truly a thing of beauty.

Remember when you were a kid and you would mix all the fountain sodas together into one monstrosity of a drink called a "Suicide" (or whatever it was called where you're from). As an adult you probably realize that the end result was something less-than-greater than the sum of its parts, no matter how good Mountain Dew and Big Red taste on their own.

Now, we're not trying to compare Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino's eponymous new single to harakiri, but... have you heard it? The 50-second clip posted to TMZ earlier this week basically sounds like the Aqua Netted orange reality star and collaborators Fatman Scoop, DJ Class, The Disco Fries tried to cram every studio effect at their disposal into three minutes of an already tiresome dance track. The end result is very much akin to... dare we say it... a musical Suicide.

By what we can tell from the brief snippet, he doesn't even mention his abs, although he'll no doubt perform the full version of the song Saturday night, when he DJs at Rich's. iTunes even tells us there and explicit version AND an instrumental version. Can. Not. Wait.

Great Moments in Douchebaggotry is brought to you by Rocks Off's upcoming Washington Shore party, Thursday, February 11 at the Washington Avenue Drinkery. All types of douchebags are encouraged to attend.

Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray

"Ha! Nice try, Dreadlock Monster. I'd like to speak to Axl Rose. Let me know when he gets here."

​Everyone knows (or should know, at this point) that Axl Rose is... contentious. He regularly shows up late for the few gigs he doesn't cancel, throws frequent temper tantrums onstage, and throws threats and insults around like they're greetings. It's not much of a surprise to discover that the man doesn't respond well to criticism, it was just kind of surprising how his most well-known response manifested itself.

Former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan wrote a song called "Why Do You Look At Me When You Hate Me?" When Axl got a hold of it, he changed everything but the first line, transforming the song into a bitter rant against various rock critics he had beef with. Included were Mick Wall of Kerrang!, Andy Secher of Hit Parader, and SPIN's Bob Guccione Jr. Here's a little sample of what Axl had to say about Bob:

"Bob Guccione Jr. at SPIN/ What, you pissed off 'cause your dad gets more pussy than you?/ Fuck you/ Suck my fuckin' dick/ You be rippin' off the fuckin' kids/ While they be payin' their hard earned money to read about the bands they want to know about/ Printin' lies, startin' controversy/ You wanna antagonize me?/ Antagonize me motherfucker/ Get in the ring motherfucker/ And I'll kick your bitchy little ass/ Punk/ I don't like you, I just hate you/ I'm gonna kick your ass!"

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Great Moments in Douchebaggotry is brought to you by Rocks Off's upcoming Washington Shore party, Thursday, February 11 at the Washington Avenue Drinkery. All types of douchebags are encouraged to attend.

Didn't Iggy Pop write a song about this? "Your Pretty Face" is something something?

​We don't know if you've been following along, but if you have, you already know the life of Courtney Love has not exactly been a showcase of taste and restraint. She's been constantly caught up in numerous shenanigans involving drugs, crime, and public feuds. She's been involved in a ton of lawsuits, some of which are still ongoing, and thanks to having had more cosmetic surgery than Darth Vader, has gone from a reasonably hot chick to some kind of bone monster dipped in a vat of barely-adherent skin.

Just about the only thing Rocks Off sides with her on is the death of her husband, Kurt Cobain. We think it's pretty obvious she wasn't directly involved; if she had been, Kurt would have been found skinned and nailed to the ceiling, with Lovecraftian glyphs painted on the walls around the crime scene in his own blood. And covered in heroin. Oh Lordy, let us not forget the heroin.

Those of us old enough to remember when Frances Bean Cobain was born have been relentlessly terrified for her this entire time, waiting for either Courtney to clean up her act, or for the authorities to intervene and confiscate Frances Bean like she was made out of weapons-grade plutonium.

Frances Bean had already lived with Kurt's mother Wendy O'Connor on those semi-annual occasions when Courtney was arrested, and so returned to live there on a permanent basis when Courtney was stripped of custody last December. The really eerie thing is that we still don't know what the hell was the last straw, only that whatever it was moved Frances Bean to take out a restraining order against her own mother - which of course Courtney is suing to have undone.

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