I wish they would change the opening. DODES has been off for almost two months. Do we really need that same shot of Daryl laughing week after week? No. We don’t.
No shots of bands waking up this time. Just Brendon and Katina. Apparently, they are in the mood to go over the bands’ earnings once again. Here we go:
FLICK -- $6529
HARLOW -- $8388
SHITSPLATTER (you like that one, don’t you?) -- $8959
Why do they have to win? They totally don’t deserve it. But whatever.
Brendon and Katina mention that the battle of the bands is happening in three days. The band that wins gets immunity from exile. You know all this. The only way to get CRACK out of the way is for FLICKERSTICK to win the battle and HARLOW to outsell them. HARLOW is pretty lazy, though, so let’s not hold our collective breath. The town is Tampa. Woooo! Spring break, Tampa! Wooooooo!
FLICKERSTICK also has their doubts about HARLOW’s ability to overcome “the selling machine” (tm Brandin) otherwise known as SOULCRACKER. Cory: “If they were smart, they would try to sell as much merch as possible. They should play a couple of shows, too.” Cory, do you know them at all?
The bands are on their way. Sutton wants to sound “significantly different from the other bands.” Don’t worry, dude. Nobody sucks quite like you guys do.
It pretty much seems like HARLOW has given up at this point. They seem really apathetic and kind of ready to go home. This frustrates me. It seems to me that they have a duty to fulfill, and they’re just gonna sit around and wait to get kicked off. That sucks. I want them to buck up and beat BUTTSLAPPER. It really wouldn’t take that much effort. They’ve been able to sell when it came down to it. Why not now? Boo.
As soon as they get into town, CRACK naturally heads straight to their venue. Before they go in, everyone is already anticipating AP opening his big yapper with a bunch of “check it outs” and “cools” and whatnot. Everyone seems pretty fed up with him, which I suppose is understandable. He sucks. Beastie: “AP’s attitude towards business is abrasive to the rest of the band. When he’s talking to someone who could help us out and he’s all ‘Check it out, you have to do this,’ that’s just not cool.” Word, B-Man. You guys should just kick him out and have you play bass instead. At least then you’ll have something to do onstage, aside from undulating, seizure-like. Sutton: “He’s gonna have such a huge, annoying ‘check it out.’” Probably.
HARLOW is feeling “fatigued.” What a bloody surprise. Oh, wait, I screwed up. It’s actually not all that surprising, because they are always in bed eating room service. How are they all so skinny? All we really see them do is lie around and eat, with an occasional show thrown in the mix somewhere. It doesn’t add up. ["I would say 'heroin,' but I don't get that vibe from the girls. They do eat a lot, though, not that there's anything wrong with that." -- Sars]
So, Cory’s all pissy about some crap that Brandin did. You see, FLICK (in top form, of course) is headed to the hotel bar. Cory “purposely slowed down, because I knew Brandin was gonna take the inside seat at the bar and put me outside the confines of the group.” Dude, you seriously need to relax. I know the battle is coming up and you’re a little bit freaked right now, but don’t take it out on your band. He wasn’t trying to exile you from FLICKland. He was just trying to sit down and get a brew. So just chill (‘til the episode). Everyone pretty much snaps. Rex goes off about Cory yelling at him onstage or something. He says something about Cory's “precious keyboards.” Heh. Yeah, I don’t even know why Cory bothers playing that shit. He clearly doesn’t really play. He just holds, like, two chords. Move over, Monk. Not.
CRACK has met a couple of tattoo-artist girls who are having a slumber party pretty soon. The boys seem pretty thrilled about the whole thing. While AP gets a peace symbol tattooed on his back, Sutton meets Casper, a local promoter and manager. He sets them up with a gig at the Brass Mug, a local hard-rock dive that really seems more like a HARLOW kind of place. So they “cranked it up and rocked out.” Beastie keeps referring to FLICK as “corporate pussy rock” without a hint of irony. Um, Beastie? Yeah, lean in close so you can hear me. You are on a VH-1 show. VH-1 is owned by…you guessed it! Viacom, a corporate entertainment juggernaut. So don’t shit where you eat, dumbass. Whether you like it or not, you are now officially corporate pussy rock your own damn self. So, shut up.
Merch!
FLICK -- $20
HARLOW -- $0 (What? You expected more?)
CRACK -- $88
Fletcher is really depressed, man. He’s still freaked about cheating on Angela (his fiancée), and he’s tearing himself up. If he says “I just lost sight of what’s important” one more time, I may actually get the point. Wait, no, I totally got it the first thousand times. Cory comes out while Fletch is puffin’ a smoke and asks if he wants to go the beach. Fletch replies, “No, I want to look sad and pathetic in front of the camera so that Angela knows how much I’ve suffered.” Well, not really, but you know that’s what he’s thinking.
Bob wants to get out of the hotel and go the beach. I have to agree with him. SOULCRACKER takes practically no leisure time for themselves. They need it. They need to play and frolic and experience not selling things for a little bit. So, in the van on the way to the beach, Bob mentions that maybe it isn’t such a great idea to waste the day like this. Sutton: “It was your fucking idea!” Word, it definitely was. Bob: “You didn’t get out of bed, as usual.” Uh oh. Somehow the conversation turns to AP, who Sutton calls “condescending” (which he totally is). AP: “You’ve got problems.” Sutton: “Yeah, with you.” Again I say, word. Anyway, AP gives him some “buck up camper” speech about having pride and priorities, which is so lame that I’m not going to waste your time or mine recapping it any further. In short, AP sucks rocks.
HARLOW is at Kinko’s. They decide that light blue flyers will actually get more people to their show. When are bands going to realize that flyers do absolutely nothing? Most of the places they play have a crowd already there. Dude, you’re in town for three days. You’re not going to start a fan-base. Rayshele: “It’s right before the battle of the bands [duh], and we’re all feeling the pressure.” Just take a couple more bong rips, there. Seriously, though. She always talks like she’s ragingly baked.
Bonus opportunity! Whoever wins gets to play on a party cruise ship for two hundred bucks. The band can bring twenty-five people and there will be an open bar. Sounds pretty fun, actually. So, the bands have to nominate their three best drinkers for a beer-drinking race. Cory: “Why don’t you just give us the two hundred dollars?” Unfortunately, El Dangeroso is out for the count (“I don’t to be drunk another night”), so FLICK nominates Cory, Brandin, and Fletcher. CRACK nominates Beastie, Ramsey, and AP. HARLOW sends in Chimene, Rebecca, and Amanda. Beastie: “HARLOW isn’t going to win.” Bob: “If it were a blood-drinking contest, then I’d be worried.” Fair enough. So, you know what sucks? SOULCRACKER wins it. It’s all Ramsey, too. He chugs his beer so quickly you barely even see it. Color me impressed. I can’t even chug water that quickly. Damn. But CRACK is actually really graceful about it (for once), and they invite the other bands to join them on the party boat for a last huzzah before the band gets the boot. FLICK is still pretty bewildered that they lost. Cory: “I’d like to apologize to all our friends and family, to Texas.” Rex: “God! SOULCRACKER beating us!” No kidding, man. What the hell happened?
HARLOW is back in their room, and they’ve given up. Amanda: “We were going to try to catch up to SOULCRACKER in merch sales, but now that FLICKERSTICK lost the drinking competition, it’s going to be really hard.”
On the party cruise, all the bands are hanging out with some other random people that CRACK invited, and according to AP, “we all had a blast.” I think that’s nice. They all talk a lot of shit about one another, but they can still just forget about the competition for a while and enjoy themselves. Except Fletcher, who’s still brooding in the corner by himself. CRACK plays a couple of acoustic songs, but it’s certainly not the focal point of the evening. Cory and Rebecca talk about Cory’s girlfriend and what’s going to happen after the show. Cory has no clue. Some pirate-type guy shoots a cannon off the mast of the ship, and everyone claps. Sweet.
So everyone is pretty drunk at this point, and SOULCRACKER decides to go on a vandalism spree, which I hate to admit is pretty damn hilarious. They trash street-cones, roadblocks, folding chairs and tables, and pretty much anything else they find. Bob does a hysterical dance before jumping into the van. They do have their moments sometimes, I’m sorry to say. Except AP. He will always suck.
Oh my God, I can’t believe what a butthole Cory is being. He gets all pissed at Brandin at the bar for putting a chicken bone in the salad he told Cory he could have. Cory, lighten the hell up. You think it was intentional? Get over it, dude. You know your bandmates love you, so just take it down a notch. Damn. Then Fletcher somehow gets involved, and Cory's sputtering, and they spend a good five minutes covering this lame-ass tiff. What the hell are they gonna do when HAR…I mean, "the band" gets the boot? They have no material now. I long for the days of DODES.
Sutton wants to get in an “old-fashioned fist fight” with AP. I can’t really say that I blame him. In fact, I completely sympathize. It’d better happen.
Anyway, while HARLOW is playing an acoustic set in the hotel bar (do they ever go anywhere else?), Brandin and Cory continue their discussion from earlier. Cory: “I don’t really know how I’m going to face the reality of going home, because as soon as I step off the plane I’m going to have all this stuff to deal with.” Cory seems to think the reason he’s had such a short fuse recently is the impending trip home and the music he has to face. “I fucked my whole fucking life up.” I wouldn’t go that far. Fletcher’s on the phone with Angela, and that’s all I’m going to say because it’s the exact same conversation they have every time they speak. He almost starts to cry, showers her with loving words, hangs up, and cries. Enough. Already.
So CRACK is at the aforementioned slumber party with the tattoo sisters, and a game of Spin The Bottle is in full effect. Some people aren’t even really playing anymore. They’re just flat-out hooking up, big-time. One dude kisses two girls at once. Bob and Sutton are the only CRACKs playing. Bob gets a kiss. Sutton gets a kiss. Sutton kisses a boy, something I most certainly did not expect. Bob is a little worried because Sutton has taken a greater interest in drinking recently. Bob, you should shut up.
So, it’s time for all the bands to get ready to rock. It’s battle day, and we’ve got shots of all the bands loading up their crap. The stage looks huge and awesome, and all the bands are totally excited and nervous.
HARLOW visits CRACK’s merch table and starts ripping on all of their stuff, which I find delightful. Then Beastie rips on HARLOW ripping on their stuff, which is also sort of funny.
It’s time. CRACK is up first, and Beastie is wearing some weird black latex kind of thing. I don’t really know what it is, but it looks like it would be wicked hot underneath the stage lights. Sutton: “Our goal tonight is to rock really hard and make the other bands look kind of like pussies.” Everyone on this show uses the word “pussy.” Whaddup wit dat? Anyway, while they’re playing, Rayshele flips them the bird, and Rex screams, “You can’t rock like me, motherfucker!” Heh. “Staring At The Sun” is such an annoying song. I hate the way Beastie sings. But when they finish their set, Sutton gives a very heartfelt thanks and best wishes to the other bands, and everyone gets all…something. Whatever, man. They didn’t rock that hard at all. Then again, they never do.
FLICK is up , and they rock as hard as they always do, which is pretty damn hard. Brandin tells everyone, “No matter who you’ve met or who you know or what you know, just listen. That’s the point. It’s not about winning.” Yeah, but regardless of the competition, man, you guys will always be winners. You’re already winners. Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, as they finish, Rex (or I guess he’s El Dangeroso at this point) starts beating the crap out of his guitar, and his hands are all bloody. Then he smashes the damn thing. Unbelievable. So they’re done.
HARLOW gets on and does their thing, which, as always, is totally mediocre. I’m so sick of hearing “Blue Lie,” I could scream. Do they even have any other songs aside from that and the ever-so-cleverly titled “Michael Hunt”? Do I care enough to wait for an answer? No. Anyway, Amanda thanks all the bands and Brendon and Katina. They’re done. Thank God. I hate their music.
Sutton: “I think we may have kicked ass tonight. If we didn’t win I’ll just attribute it to no smashed guitars from SOUCRACKER.” Hmm. Maybe you should consider attributing it to your band sucking rocks. Just a suggestion there, guy.
Time to find out who is the recipient of the DODES trophy.
Total tour earnings:
FLICK -- $6669
HARLOW -- $8654
SOULCRACKER -- $9684
Okay, so the point system is the same as the last battle of the bands. Votes from the audience invited by the bands only count for one point, while the votes from independent audience members invited by VH1 count for five points. So let’s see who won:
FLICK -- 214 votes
HARLOW -- 94 votes
CRACKSOULER -- 72 votes (Haw haw!)
So, FLICK is safe from exile. HARLOW, on the other hand, is not. They’re gone. I’m gonna miss the girls, but not their tunes, that’s for sure. Everyone consoles HARLOW, Dominic breaks down into tears (why is it always Dom who cries?), and we bust into a five-minute HARLOW montage which consists mostly of different shots of each member giving rock fingers and rock faces, and pretty much just living rock through and through. They were pretty cool, though, I have to say.
So, yeah. This show is gonna suck now. They’ve been running out of material and story lines for weeks already, and now they’ve cut a third of the cast. I hope BOTR 2: Electric Boogaloo starts off with more bands, and I hope that one of them will be a live PA group or something. ["I was on the phone to Alex Richmond the other day, and she suggested a clown-core band and folk trios or something, just to mix things up a bit. I'd like to see a little 'Riverdance' action, myself." -- Sars] Regardless, it’s just FLICK and CRACK now. Could make for some interesting television. And by “interesting” I mean “not all that interesting at all anymore.” Sorry for the misunderstanding.
week, Dominic boffs some girl with Rex still in the room (real classy, Dom), Sutton goes on a bender, CRACK plays a party with about three people present, and Cory will “kick the shit out of anyone who badmouths us.” I can’t wait. How 'bout you?