The Hilarious Sadness that is Guy Fieri

Disclaimer- I do not own the rights to any of the clips shown or the music. This is for entertainment purposes only. I know that this is a NIN cover. But in an interview with Trent Reznor he said it was now Johnny Cash's after he heard the cover.

Yesterday I was goofing around on the internet and I stumbled upon something great. I was looking at Facebook, or maybe it was Twitter, and I happened upon the AV Club's fan page. I check the AV club stuff out a lot. I enjoy some of their reviews on movies, music and other things, and I always enjoy reading their top 10, 20 or 30 lists because they drive me both, very angry and agreeable. Sometimes they are right on the mark, other times, they are way off. The AV Club is also very predictable. It's easy to know what they will like and dislike when it comes to TV, movies, music, basically any pop culture stuff. But, this video I stumbled upon last night is one of the greatest "WTF" things I have ever seen on the internet.

First things first, I do not enjoy Guy Fieri. The guy is a hack. He is a joke. He has no idea what he is doing and he looks like a goblin. He is a wannabe rock star that tries to make eating at diners and cooking mediocre food look cool. Spoiler alert Guy Fieri, you are not, nor have you ever been, cool. You look and act utterly ridiculous. You are the Sammy Hagar of food, and that is not a compliment.

On the other hand, I do enjoy Johnny Cash. I love pretty much everything he has done. When he first put out music, it was at the height of good country music. He was the best, in my opinion, amongst his peers that included guys like Hank Williams and Kris Kristofferson. In the middle of his career, when he was infatuated with pills and jail, he made some of his best music. His album, "Live at Folsom Prison" is, not only one of my personal favorite live albums, it is also one of the best live albums of all time. It is a peak performer doing his best music for a bunch of inmates, and they all loved it. Even later in his life, when he teamed up with Rick Rubin, that was, in my opinion, his best music. He did mainly covers, but the covers and the originals were top notch. Rick Rubin put his stamp on it, but those records really shined when Cash would sing. His voice, while old and getting more gruff, sounded delightful. It was heartbreaking, but in all the right ways.

This all leads me back to what I was talking about in the beginning of this post. Some genius cut together a video of Guy Fieri eating food, on one of his many TV shows, and instead of having Fieri talk or putting in his garbage music on his shows, they put Johnny Cash's version of the song "Hurt" as the main music accompanying the 3 minute video. Go watch it right now, it will change your life. The video is one of the funniest, gut wrenching, tastefully done comedic things I have witnessed. The video opens on Fieri talking about some kind of food that he is about to devour, because that is the only proper word for describing how Guy Fieri eats, and then the music comes in and Cash recites the opening lyric, "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel". Oh. My. God. What a perfect lyric to describe Guy Fieri's life choices. Not only does he hurt himself with the food he eats, but his everyday life is one bad choice after another, and I think he does it to see if he can still feel things like embarrassment, pain and guilt. This was the exact opening I was hoping for when I clicked on the link and it only got so much better from there. Cash continues to sing the song and we continue to see Fieri eating one monstrosity after the other. Then, when we get to the chorus, it is a thing of beauty, at least comedy wise, not so much to look at. When the chorus starts, Fieri is just jamming this food into his stupid face, and all the while, we hear Cash singing things, "What have I become, my only friend", "everything goes away in the end", "but you could have it all", "I will make you hurt". Those lyrics couldn't be anymore perfect for what we are seeing as the viewing audience. Even at the end, when the chorus gets louder and more poignant, it is like a mash up of all of the things that most people find incredibly disgusting about Guy Fieri.

This video is everything that it should be. It is funny, poignant, timely and will go down as a classic "viral video". As I said before, I don't know who made it, but I know that they had a stroke of genius when they decided to do this. This is one of the greatest things that is on the internet. This gives me faith in the good parts of the internet. Yeah, it is mocking someone, but this particular someone deserves to be mocked for his countless moments of acting, and being, a jackass. I watched the video three times yesterday, showed it to my wife who watched it once, and I have watched it two more times today. This is wonderful and I urge everyone to seek it out. You won't be disappointed.

ed note: The creator of the video is Mayor Wertz, you can subscribe to his YouTube channel here.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host for the X Millennial Man Podcast. He loves his food, he just does not love it with flame shirts and bleached hair. Make sure you follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Greatest American Band Debate: Rick Rubin and Brian Burton

SeedSing is filled with music lovers. We can not agree on who is the best band from the States. The Greatest American Band Debate will be a regular feature where we discuss and compare bands who started in the good old USA. If you have any suggestions of bands we should debate Contact us seedsing.rdk@gmail.com

In lieu of talking about another band today for the greatest American band debate, I'm going to talk about two producers. These guys are legends in the music business and without them, we would never have gotten some of the greatest bands of all time. They're both mainly producers, but one also doubles as a pretty good musician. The two people I'm going to talk about today are Rick Rubin and Brian Burton, AKA Danger Mouse.

Let's first start with Brian Burton. Danger Mouse bust onto the music scene with the legendary "Grey Album". This was a "mashup" of the Beatles "White Album" and Jay Z's "Black Album". This record was incredible. He perfectly blended Beatles with Jay Z. We had never heard anything like this before. Now, it's commonplace for DJ's and producers to do "mashups", but Danger Mouse was one of the first. This record was also impossible to come by. He didn't get permission from the powers that be to make it, so the few that got released were hard to get your hands on. You had to know someone who knew someone that had a copy just so you could get one. It's a masterpiece.

With the acclaim that followed "The Grey Album", Danger Mouse was in high demand. He began to work with a lot of artists. He, along with Cee Lo Green started the band Gnarls Barkley. An awesome concept for this band. Green did the vocals and Danger Mouse did everything else. They put out two awesome albums. The way he met Green was working with him on the "Danger Doom" album. This was Danger Mouse and MF Doom. MF Doom is an awesome, but under appreciated rapper. Their "Danger Doom" record is an excellent concept album. They used Adult Swim cartoons as their base and wrote rap songs to go along with it. Some Adult Swim people that appear are Master Shake, Harvey Birdman and Meatwad, to name a few.

Later on, Danger Mouse was called upon by the Black Keys, one of my all time favorite bands, to be the first outsider to produce one of their albums. He came to work with them on "Attack and Release", their first real ambitious album. He's since worked almost exclusively with them, making their sound more complete. He's added bass where needed and piano as a cherry on top of their unique sound. He was one of the driving forces behind their most recent and most ambitious record, "Turn Blue", and I will be forever grateful to him for making the Black Keys take some much needed steps to further their sound and push the limits.

Danger Mouse also has the band Broken Bells. This is him and Shins frontman James Mercer's side project. This is a great platform for Mercer to step away from the indie rock sound and really take some big vocal chances. He has to hit so many high notes with Broken Bells and he does great. That's something he would have never done in the Shins. Broken Bells is great.

Danger Mouse has also done work with a lot of other famous artists, Jack White, Norah Jones and Sparklehorse among many, many others. Danger Mouse is probably the second most in demand producer right now, and everything he's done so far has been pretty great. He's a top of the line producer.

The only guy that may be more in demand than Danger Mouse has got to be Rick Rubin. I mean, the dude co created Def Jam Records first of all. Just google Def Jam and look at all the ultra famous people that have been on that label, it's astonishing. He and Russell Simmons created an empire. They both created probably the best rap label of all time. Bands like Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and Run DMC owe their fame to Simmons and Rubin. Even a guy like LL Cool J they made famous. Rubin is a total recluse, but when he emerges from his cocoon to work, this guy never disappoints. He was the producer on the "Black Album", Jay Z's best in my opinion.

Rubin has worked outside of rap music as well. His clientele includes  the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, the Avett Brothers, the Dixie Chicks, Adele, Rage Against the Machine, Slayer, Mars Volta, Mick Jagger, the list could go on for days and days. He's even done stuff with Lady Gaga, Shakira and Ed Sheerhan. He has definitely expanded his grasp on all music.

The one thing you hear when people talk about working with Rubin is what a great professional he truly is. He has a knack for hearing and knowing great music. Before him, the Avett Brothers were just another run of the mill folk group. Rubin made them great. Same thing can be said about the Dixie Chicks. He produced their only listenable record. Rage Against the Machine knew they were working with a legend and let him do his thing, ending with great results. Lady Ga Ga, Shakira and Ed Sheerhan should thank their lucky stars that Rubin agreed to work with them. That's a huge compliment. Slayer and Mars Volta made their best stuff with Rubin on board. He's a genius, there's no other word that better describes him. Rubin's talent was on full display when he  got the absolute best out of an almost dead Johnny Cash. Those last two albums of his are masterpieces and a lot of that has to do with Rick Rubin being the producer.

They may not be a band, but we cannot talk great American music without mentioning these two guys that have helped produce so much of it. I can't wait to see what Danger Mouse and Rick Rubin do next.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. As a kid he thought Puff Daddy was the only producer in music. He has since become aware of others. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Greatest American Band Debate: The Avett Brothers

SeedSing is filled with music lovers. We can not agree on who is the best band from the States. The Greatest American Band Debate will be a regular feature where we discuss and compare bands who started in the good old USA. If you have any suggestions of bands we should debate Contact us seedsing.rdk@gmail.com

For the greatest American band debate today I'm going to nominate one of my personal favorite folk rock groups. The band I'm going to talk about today is the Avett Brothers.

The Avett Brothers are a four piece with the "Brothers" part being banjo player and co lead vocalist, Scott Avett and lead guitar and co lead vocalist, Seth Avett. The rest of the band is bass player, both upright and electric, Bob Crawford and they have a cello player named Joe Kwon. They have other musicians sit in on drums and piano from time to time, but those are the four main guys.

I was introduced to this band about 7 or 8 years ago via an article in "Rolling Stone" I read. They had just started to work with Rick Rubin and I pretty much like anyone that brings Rick Rubin on to work with them. This was kind of a departure for Rubin, but he had been doing mainly rap for awhile when he found the Avett Brothers. He worked with Johnny Cash and he was doing some other stuff with rock bands as well as working with Jay Z and many other rappers, but he had never really produced any folk music, at least not to my knowledge (ed note: He did also work with The Dixie Chicks, I guess they are folk-like). All I needed to see was that this band personally asked Rubin to come in and produce their record. I was going to listen no matter what.

That Rubin produced album was "I And Love And You". This is an absolutely phenomenal album. It was a great way for me to be introduced to their sound. This record is perfection. The way they mix folk and rock is just incredible. They also do beautiful slow songs and when they rock, they really bring it. The opening track, "I And Love And You" is one of the most bittersweet songs ever. They talk about falling out of love with their partner and saying that those three words are very hard to say. The piano they use, as it builds and builds, is downright beautiful. The louder the piano gets, the more pain they sing with and it's awesome. It is a great song. But, when you have had all the sadness you think you can endure, they hit you with a great love song, "January Wedding". This is a great, great first dance song, especially if you have a wedding in the month of January. "January Wedding" features some excellent solo banjo playing from Scott Avett and beautiful vocals from Seth Avett. Another great song. Then, they hit you with a rock song. The song "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" is a great rock song. It starts out slower, like a folk song, but when they hit the bridge and then the third verse, it turns into a straight up rock song, with loud drums, banjo and guitar. They also up their vocals and knock it out of the park. The rest of "I And Love And You" is a great example of how to mix rock with folk and Rubin is at the top of his game producing this album. I could write a whole piece just on this record, but they have a lot of other music that is equally great.

After listening to "I And Love And You" on repeat for about 6 months, I decide it was time to dig into their older stuff, the stuff that is mainly folk music. I went out and bought "Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsvile Sessions", "Emotionalism", "Country Was", "Mignonette" and "A Carolina Jubilee" and listened to them all almost immediately, one right after the other. "Country Was" and "A Carolina Jubilee" are very similar, in the fact that they are straight up folk records. Sure, they rock out on some songs, but it's all acoustic and it's all great. There are some classic Avett Brothers songs on these records like "Love Like the Movies", saying that movie love is fake, and I agree, "Pretty Girl From Raleigh", which finds them opining an old love and "I Killed Sally's Lover" which is a dark song, but the tone is upbeat. All great, early songs from the Avett Brothers.

Then I listened to "Four Thieves Gone: The Robinsville Sessions". This record, in my opinion, is a masterpiece. This album showed the band stretching what I thought was folk music, and had them exploring rock, and on one song, Scott Avett is almost rapping. It's a really good album. Go listen to songs like "Colrshow" to hear them rock out and yell sing lyrics awesomely or "Matrimony" which is about the plight of marriage, but there precision on vocals and instruments is on full display. Some other great songs are "Four Thieves Gone", which has them back to their roots with a ballady, slower folk song or "Pretend Love", which is a great mixture of rock and folk. My favorite track is the opening song, "Talk On Indolence". This song perfectly captures the bands love for folk and rock and both brothers vocals are just excellent.

"Four Thieves Gone" is so great. I didn't think that they could get better on the other albums I had, but, I was floored by what I heard on "Mignonette" and "Emotionalism". Both of these albums show real growth and exploration from this awesome band. On "Mignonette", we get some classic Avett Brothers tunes like "Swept Away", just an absolutely beautiful love song, "The New Love Song", which shows that this band is really unsure that they have ever truly been in love, you can really hear the hurt in this song, "Letter to a Pretty Girl", which has them, once again, opining for a lost love and "Salvation song", that is so good, it should be gospel. "Mignonette" is a really good album. But, "Emotionalism" is better. On "Emotionalism", we get great songs like "Paranoia in B-Flat Major", which is one Avett Brothers song that every fan knows and they play it at most live shows. There's also the beautifully heart breaking song "The Ballad of Love and Hate", which has hate being a jerk, but love loving everything about hate, no matter what. A great folk/rock song on this album is "Pretty Girl From Chile" which has a lady read an old love letter right in the middle of the song, then they proceed to rock for the rest of the song. "Hand Me Down Tune" is a great, slower folk song that is about the love of old music. It's awesome.

I was now hooked on Avett Brothers music. I was ready for their next record to come out because I needed new Avett Brothers music. They released "The Carpenter" in 2012 and I adore this album. It is one great song after another. "Once and Future Carpenter" is a typical folk song made great by this band. "Live and Die", which some of you may know from a GAP ad a couple of years ago, is a really sad song about death, but made upbeat by the vocals and instruments. "Pretty Girl From Michigan" is a great throwback Avett Brothers song that has them rocking and being very folksy at the same time. "Down With the Shine" is a perfect folk song. The instruments are great and when Scott Avett and Seth Avett trade off on vocals, I love every second of it. "Geraldine" is a very short, but very awesome rock song. Great electric guitars and great, very fast vocals. "Paul Newman vs. The Demons" starts off as a rock song and continues to rock harder through all 4 minutes and 43 seconds. It's the first straight forward rock song from the Avett Brothers and they crush it.

Then, one year later they released "Magpie and the Dandelion". This album is great, but it's not as great as their other stuff. I like that they take a ton of chances on this album and play a lot of electric instruments, and it is still very good, it's just not up to par with the other stuff I've mentioned today. Still good and worth a listen for fans though.

Other than what I've mentioned above, the Avett Brothers have a lot of EPs and they have put out three live albums and one live DVD. It's all great. The EPs are very early so they are mainly folk with some country splashed in. The live stuff is great. I've seen them live three times and every time they are awesome. They have a great energy that they bring to their live shows and when they slow it down, their ballads are beautifully done. Go see them if you want to experience a great, high energy live show.

I'm very excited to see what the Avett Brothers have in store for the near future. They are a great band that has put out a ton of music, but they are still fairly young and they have a lot of music ahead of them. I adore the Avett Brothers and they belong in this conversation. I know they lean more folk, but they are one of America's greatest bands.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He liked to strum the banjo on his front porch, but had to stop because the neighbors that it was creepy. Make sure you follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.