Sherlock Holmes- “Bros Before Hoes”
Warner Brothers
7/10
Sherlock Holmes trades in his opium pipe and monocle for a pile of action-packed Blow and brass knuckles in this Bro-rotic romance bowler-hat adventure.
Holmes is given a case seemingly more fitting for Scooby Doo- tracking down a spooky magician’s ghost. You know the drill: ancient cult, dudes in robes, world domination, diffusing a bomb, if it weren’t for those pesky kids… Unlike Scooby Doo, though, Holmes is out to get laid. The twist is, he has his sights set on his trusty companion Watson. Jealous …

Ah, the holidays. Filled with soccer moms becoming lethal killers at Target, ugly sweater parties and punx yelling about commercialism. Well, we’re down with gifts, and since we don’t want to be yelled at about commercializing the religious holidays, we are offering our second Killer Sharks MP3 compilation to you for free. Again, we have the lovely Christine Curry doing the art and a lineup featuring a variety of artists and genres.
We have French punks Sinner Sinners, Icelandic singer Ólöf Arnalds, Pennsylvanian hardcore kids Common Enemy, as well as …

The holidays are hard upon us and the final stretch mad-dash to shower those dear and socially necessary to us with lavish gifts is underway. To some, the experience can be harrowing and frustratingly exhausting as the idea list for presents quickly gets used up and inches ever nearer to body-wash and “sausages of the world” platter territory. Racket has you covered. Our list of can’t-fail gifts will have everyone squealing with delight.
miShare iPod File Transfer Dock- For when you want it right now, wherever, whenever. Make …

Okay, so you’ve stocked the fridge with your favorite egg-nog/Kalua/wine/beer/depressant of choice, and bought presents for your parents, ex-girlfriend, and family dog, and made extra sure to make Paypal donation to Network for Good. What else is there for you to do to make up for all the naughty, naughty things you did the other 11 months of the year? Answer: A lot. And if you’re not careful your bid to get your karma fixed could end quicker than My Name is Earl. But don’t worry, …

Not too many white dudes like fried squid because it’s too “weird”, “ethnic”, and it smells funny [Emperor's Note: Like Kateri. BURN!]. However, Casey Crescenzo of Boston rock band The Dear Hunter is one of the few that does. I sat down with Casey at the Uva Bar in Anaheim’s Downtown Disney before his show with Thrice to talk beards, Disneyland, the band’s new album Act III: Life and Death, and munched on calamari (which was quite tasty). The Dear Hunter’s pleasantly young-faced tour manager, Connor also makes a special …

THE BOMB
SPEED IS EVERYTHING
No Idea Records
7/10
I have to be in the mood for a release like this and right now I’m just not. I can hear hints of bands like Jawbreaker, Guided By Voices and even the Foo Fighters, all of whom I love, but I can’t be very enthusiastic about it right now. It’s that kind of somber, reflective punk that it’s good to dwell on and mull over a bit. The album definitely harkens back to ’80s post punk and makes me think of acts like Big …

GWAR
With uhhhh…some other bands who weren’t GWAR! (Job For a Cowboy, The Red Chord)
The Glasshouse, Pomona, CA
Here is how GWAR went:
- Pick up RacketMike
- Pick up a coupla forties and some single serving wine bottles
- Go to Pomona
- Drink booze
- Get tix
- Hear Job For a Cowboy from outside
- Go to Joey’’s BBQ for a pitcher of beer each
- Go to The Glasshouse
- GWARGWARGWARGWARbloodGWARGWARGWARObamaGWAR
- Go home
- Get bit in the face by a dog
- Booze
- Sleep
Man, GWAR rules.
–Jonathan Yost

As our series on hipsters comes to the end, we look at the history of the subculture- it’s past, its present, and its precarious future.Will they continue to dominate long after shutter shades and ironic tees disappear from the mainstream, or fade away in wake of one of the worst economic malaises in modern history?
What do a documentarian, a humorist, a journalist, and a professor have in common?
They’ve all known hipsters, or someone who does. Some have even penned books and lengthy articles about them, many more verbose than …

The Kobanes
Japan Invasion
Fixing a Hole/Dumb! Records
6/10
More legitimate pop punk, but lacking the expertise of the masters. It’s not bad though; definitely more in the ’80s to early ’90s Queers/Vindictives vein. One of the quirkier songs on the album is “Nobody,” which is a cover of a cover. It’s obviously based on Chixdiggit’s version of the song by Sylvia, but it still manages to be a unique interpretation. There are far too many sound bites for my liking and the album has a general immaturity, but I can hardly fault a …

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Twentieth Century Fox
10 of 10
As a kid I read a lot. Specifically, I read a lot of fantasy. Real life stories were too normal, too boring, too unadventurous. I spent loads of time as a child nose deep in L. Frank Baum, C.S. Lewis, and Roald Dahl creations. I always balk at film adaptations of my much-loved childhood memories- too often, the story is contorted to be mass-marketable, generic, or romanticized. Of course, I was ever so slightly apprehensive to hear that one of my favorite directors was …

It’s the most wonderful time of the year and not to mention the most musical. Think about all the memorable holiday songs blasting through the speakers of every mall in America. While artists like Sting and Andrea Bocelli release albums fitting for the season, let’s go back in time and pay homage to the classic songs that radio station, KOST 103.5 can’t get enough of this month.1. “Oh Holy Night” – It was originally a French poem called Minuit, Chrétiens (Midnight, Christians) by Placide Cappeau in the 1800s. Composer Adolphe Adam …

Kingdom Of The Spiders
Shout Factory
8/10
B-Movies alone are hard to seriously judge, but when the main character is none other than William Shatner, well, you have a whole new set of considerations. 1977’s Kingdom Of The Spiders now must be judged on two different levels: as a B-Movie, and where it rates on the Shatner Scale.
As a B-Movie, it has all the requirements:
- Terrible screams that make you wonder how long they practiced
- Normally beatable foes becoming all-consuming
- Soundtrack consisting of mostly stock songs
- Victims slowly stumbling around
- Woman succumbing to womanizer’s “charm”
- And take a wild …

Teenage Bottlerocket
They Came from the Shadows
Fat Wreck Chords
8/10
Ah, now this is pop punk. The real kind. It’s unfortunate that when describing a band as falling within that genre, the first thing people think of is Good Charlotte, Yellowcard or Fall Out Boy. Those bands actually have their share of catchy numbers and in the broadest sense, sure they qualify, but there is just something inherently not pop punk about them. It’s probably the complete abandonment of a DIY ethos that bothers me most. Punk in the name …

Dethklok
w/Mastodon, Converge, High on Fire
November 19, 2009
Hollywood Palladium
Hollywood, CA
The best part about mosh pits has nothing to do with big hairy metal heads wiping their herpes-ridden body parts on your shoulder-and-then-some as they bum rush the stage. Mosh pits are communal joy for the annual to everyday concertgoer. We were all ticking for the Dethklok as a Metalocalypse intro video started before their set. Pipe smoke combined into a bong worthy cloud above the pit as the once-fictional band, led by Metalocalypse creator and Dethklok front man, Brendon Small took …

Rooney
W/ The Crash Kings and Tally Hall
The Glasshouse, Pomona, CA
I have seen Rooney maybe eight times over nine years now, and it seems that only drummer Ned Brower and singer Robert Schwartzmann have the ability to age. While the band HAS gotten progressively better at playing their instruments, only the previously mentioned two, and Guitarist Taylor Locke, have gotten better at being showmen. Bassist Matt Winter is probably THE most boring bassist I have seen in years…probably since the last time I saw Rooney. Whereas Ned and Robert appear to …

Fighting the Villain
First Impression
PopSmear Records
2/10
Terrible, cookie-cutter, MTV punk-pop (unlike mass media who co-opted the term, I will not refer to this stuff as pop-punk. I reserve that name for the Ramones-core bands originally dubbed as such), emo or whatever the hell they are calling it these days. Equal parts Coheed and Cambria and the stuff collecting in the bottom of your clogged up disposal system, the band features a female vocalist who is perhaps its only saving grace because she can actually sing. Be that as it may, I …