Jump to content
 

Ben W. Balls

Members
  • Posts

    73
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Ben W. Balls last won the day on April 11 2014

Ben W. Balls had the most liked content!

Reputation

57 Neutral

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Not Telling
  1. "Don't you gooo... come a little bit closer nooww, if you lie-ike... when you die-eye..." yeah! Endless Summer!
  2. Golden Showers in the Golden State... wow... dude finally picked up a guitar and wrote something fucking sick for the first time in like a dozen years. Good thing he literally shat all over it with that stupid half-assed joke of a "joke song". Says so much about the dude's mind state. *sighs*
  3. Tom always seemed like the instigator in the band. I feel like he's got ideas spilling out of his eyeballs. That's why he inevitably kind of subsumed blink until he got cocky and everything imploded. I'm pretty sure he has adult ADHD or some kind of disorder along those lines, the way he's so erratic and leaping around from idea to idea without ever maximizing anything. The thing he doesn't seem to get is that he needs people like Mark and Travis to realize his ambitions. Guys with their own talents who really bring something to the table and hew the rough edges off his crazy ideas and really make them into something worthwhile. I feel like Mark is kind of the inverse, he's someone who thrives with other people's input and he kind of wilts without it.
  4. No shit. But something like RLP is designed to be a creative collective, kind of a think tank to develop diverse and interesting content. Macbeth collaborates with people like Mike Dirnt, Frank Iero -- basically anyone that's interested. I'm not talking about broing down in the garage and skateboarding all day. There's gotta be something he can work on with Mark somewhere in there. Collaborate on his turf in the realm he's interested in now, reconnect and find some common ground since it's fucking obvious the band isn't working right now.
  5. It really is kind of fucked the way Tom seems to insist on keeping his worlds separate. With all the content he's so keen to create between Modlife, Really Likable People, Macbeth, etc. I'll never understand why he hasn't invited Mark in on some sort of creative collaboration. We know Mark has stuff to offer -- HMNIM, the podcast, the TV show. He generally seems more tech savvy than Tom. It's obvious to everybody but Tom that he's not going to change the world on his own. It's just a shame he can't seem to get that through his head.
  6. I honestly feel like you have to look at post-reunion blink-182 as kind of a different band entirely. It's blink, mk. II. You really can't compare them to the height of their popularity or even back when they broke as twenty-something dudes. The culture has changed. The industry has changed. The dynamic in the band has changed. It's really kind of a testament to their popularity that them just spitballing about new album plans lands them on all these magazine covers screaming "NEW BLINK ALBUM 2014!" But the truth is, these guys are still trying to find their legs. You're talking about a band that's peaked, that fractured internally but came back together and is trying to navigate who they are now. How do they work together, what is the band about now and what are they trying to achieve. And they have to do that without the label coaching and support that they're accustomed to in the aftermath of their massive success and, most importantly, without a producer they really gelled with who knew how to get the best out of them. Maybe they never work it out. But I think they've shown enough potential with Neighborhoods and Dogs Eating Dogs that I think they've still got it in them. If they ever put out a total clunker, I won't have a problem writing them off. But until then, I don't see the point in being a shitty asshole about it.
  7. That article perfectly illustrates the consumerist mentality of modern fandom that's totally jacked up on the A.D.D. hyper-media corporate brain swill pumped out daily at near-epileptic levels: "Blink came back. I saw them ten times and bought some new music! ... Nothing new to buy now. Bored. They should go away." It's completely asinine to suggest that blink go on another hiatus because they're not active enough. It totally underlines the gap in understanding between an audience paying for a product and a band as a collective of individual artists. It's like, NEWSFLASH: There's no virtue in quitting. Nothing good ever came out of giving up. What you're basically saying is "Let's break this toy because I'm tired of it!" Only you don't control it, so here comes this remarded campaign to get the group to disband because there's a fundamental lack of respect and a sense of entitlement that comes with buying something that comes off a massive corporate assembly line. Wow. You bought some CDs when you were in high school. Neat. Tom and Mark? They fucking CREATED this shit. They don't owe you jack. They already gave you the music. The concerts. The experience. The nostalgia. You got what you paid for and then some. They went above and beyond. And here's this little splinter group of fans content to just shit on them because you want MORE/NOW. You're dissatisfied because things haven't been perfect and you can't possibly see how it could be any other way. But that's the difference between a fan and the artist. A fan doesn't have the vision to see what's on the horizon. You pick up what's right in front of you and you hand over your money. The artist is on the frontier eking out new paths. Fucking up, finding shit that works and discovering shit that you didn't even know you wanted. I'm happy to give the guys the time to make a discovery. They've earned it. You believe blink-182 should go on hiatus again? I believe in blink-182.
  8. So, Mark went to the dentist today. MY HEAD IS SPINNING TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH THIS WHIRLWIND OF INFORMATION!
  9. I think all pet names, sarcastic or otherwise, are pretty much rendered disquieting in the presence of a dildo drill.
  10. The internet: where people think you're angry because you have a different opinion. Also, really not comfortable with a man with a dildo drill avatar calling me 'sweetheart'.
  11. What the fuck is wrong with you guys? Blink-182 IS Mark Hoppus and Tom Delonge. Any other configuration with anyone else would be another band entirely. I really don't understand the mentality of tearing this band apart because we're sick of waiting. "Blink isn't living up to the band they could be right now... let's make them WORSE!"
  12. I do believe it may be wildfire season in southern California. Or, you know... karma. Whatever.
  13. I'm fairly certain the blinkumentary is tied up with the label. I'm sure the decision to can it came down from Interscope after they reviewed it because they felt it wasn't something viable for them to pursue (the burden of marketing and distribution would fall on them), quality nonwithstanding. I think Tom, et al. were just making excuses after the fact. But there's no way the decision came down to just the three of them. Remember, Neighborhoods had come and gone by the time blinkumentary came in. Interscope was done with blink and vice versa. If blinkumentary was ever going to happen it should've come out when the album dropped on the strength of the comeback hype before the record flat lined. Obviously they cocked that all up as is becoming the standard for this band.
  14. Hasn't Mark said that they all have individual managers at this point? There literally is nobody steering this band in any discernible direction. It's all just vague ruminations and mild intentions from three different guys who have wildly different schedules and priorities. And then we all wonder why blink is so unfocused... there is no focus.
  15. For one thing, you're comparing their current customer/fan business relationship against the peak of their success when they had the support of a huge multinational corporation that shouldered the burden of selling the band. No fucking shit you were more satisfied before the reunion. All the guys had to do was show up creatively in the studio, throw down on stage and show up wherever they were scheduled to appear. Now you're talking about three guys who don't have the support of the music industry at large operating in a genre niche outside of mainstream popular culture, who have to manage their band and brand identity, PR, marketing and distribution responsibilities and all that business bullshit on top of maintaining the band itself and getting fired up and on the same page creatively. It's not really comparable to your job where you have a delineated role to fulfill as part of a team. Try managing your office and regional branch and international subsidiaries while, hell, straight up creating the product that you're selling in the first place and tell me if you're thinking about the customer.
×
×
  • Create New...