It’s time to rewind with Flashion Backward, a new UI feature that’s the spiritual cousin of our recently debuted Flashion Forward. Here, we rifle through our treasure trove of interviews to fish out a vintage gem–the better to explore the strange vortex in which fashion and musicians meet. Onto this week’s flashback…

Even if you’re laying splayed on a sagging bed under far too many layers of sheets and blankets, half dead from a hangover, stuffed to the almost-barfing brim with greasy home fries and a Spanish frittata (shoulda skipped that side of sausage) and attempting to fearlessly face down a Saturday crammed with laundry…when !!! gets queued up in your laptop’s random shuffle mode, ya can’t help but shake yer rump to the dance-punk loveliness. Suddenly you realize that Excedrin you slammed 20 minutes ago has kicked in, those sausages gave you an all-important protein-packed energy boost and laundry is for suckers–you’re headed to the park.

!!! is familiar with mood and style swings from the crusty rubble of the mid-90s hardcore scene. Lead singer Nic Offer wanted to inject some light-hearted fun, funk, pop and experimentation into his music, and the eight-member ensemble !!! was born. The music definitely evolved, but their essential commitment to radical politics, in-your-face intensity and slacker fashion remained firm. (The band members hail from the mad-genius sculptor “don’t mind this pattern of whimsically scattered mystery crust on my threadbare T-shirt, and yes, I did find these jeans on the bottom of my girlfriend’s closet, but they totally fit so I’m wearing them – all my shit is dirty, dude” school of getting dressed in the morning)

Below, check out Nic as he waxes surreal on his dream to continue to transform the world around him with…wait for it…Jesus-like floating superpowers. (The ability to simply fly or make paintings talk isn’t rock ‘n’ roll enough).

So, I like country music, especially the more gospel-inspired old tymey music. But a major problem with liking this music (for me) is that it’s mainly about one guy. Jesus. And I am not Christian. But I am hard pressed to not sing along to fire and brimstone song about how the time is coming when the sinner must die. It’s kind of like white rich frat boys singing “Straight Out of Compton…”

I guess.  

This is why it warmed my heart that the Two Man Gentlemen Band, who take the old tyme to heart, wish they had written a gospel song. A gospel song about how the flu epidemic is really God smiting you.  

(See God smite here!)

In case you aren’t chosen, we’re coming up on the heels of the Jewish New Year. Unlike in other arty fields, like being a writer or comedian, rock music isn’t a field known for its Jews. I mean, of course there’s Bob Dylan, but a lot of rock stars are hiding their Judaism with stage names. Some rockin’ Jews who you might have thought were goyim:

• Neil Diamond
• Paula Abdul
• Babydaddy of the Scissor Sisters (aka Scott Hoffman)
• Ike Turner
• Sammy Davis, Jr.
• Scott Ian of Anthrax (aka Scott Ian Rosenfeld)
• Lenny Kravitz
• Joey Ramone (aka Jeffrey Ross Hyman)
• Princess Superstar (aka Concetta Kirschner)
• Pink (aka Alecia Beth Moore)

Sorry for getting everyone’s hopes up, but today’s planned SXSW re-cap/wrap-up/regurgitation blog will have to be postponed until tomorrow due to some unforeseen computer issues that I’m having with my fucking Mac (I mean my primary work computer, not the one I may or may not have late night sex with – gives a whole new meaning to the term “cyber sex,” doesn’t it). So for now, chew on another tasty, low carb Shark Thought of The Day:

How come whenever people see the outline of a bearded figure in random objects like an oil stain or a piece of toast, they automatically assume it’s Jesus, and not Dave Grohl? I’ve never seen a real picture of the actual Jesus, but I have seen tons of Dave Grohl, and damnit, that looks JUST like him.

Today’s clip of the day comes from Eric of Say Hi (formerly Say Hi To Your Mom), and it holds a special place in The Shark’s 2-Chamber, S-shaped heart. Eric was scheduled to be our very last interview at SXSW (or so we thought – we did catch up with a very special surprise band later that night. Uh huh…), so we lobbed the kitchen sink at him. Never the artful dodger, Eric stepped up and smacked every fastball, sinker, and curveball we threw his way. Here’s a sneak peek – Say Hi’s personal SXSW survival tips:

The Shark meets The Buffalo at SXSW.

Good Friday Shark Thought Of The Day

I bet that Jesus probably had a really cool canine sidekick named Rusty, and he’d follow Jesus everywhere he went, fetching him sticks and pies and stuff. People would come out and pet the dog and say things like “Christ is that Rusty cute!” “He’s certainly no cross to bear for Jesus!” But then one day, some wandering Jews caught Jesus stabbing the dog to death after an argument, and they thought to themselves “Man, we should kill this guy.”

We’re really excited this week, and it’s not just because we finally got our new, snuggly teddy bear Mohammed from the Build-a-Bear Workshop earlier today. We’ve got one of our favorite bands, The Gaskets, up on Uncensored Interview right now:

These lads are, in a word, fucking awesome. I know that’s two words, but what are you, the grammar police?

Have you ever heard a band for the very first time, and right away you think to yourself “These guys are going to be huge”? Yeah, that’s how we felt the first time we heard “The Easy Life” from The Gaskets on our Supercomputer over at UI HQ.

After 3 minutes and 28 seconds of orgasmically aural bliss serenading our ears, we stood up to stretch, and our coffee mugs just crashed to the ground. We were all like “what the fuck,” but then we looked down and noticed the raging hard-ons we each were now sporting What’s even weirder is that out of the 5 people in the room, I was the only guy. And i have E.D. Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit. I don’t really have E.D. But my grandpa does. Which makes me wonder sometimes, why does my grandmother stay with that limp-dicked asshole? He must really be good at eating… you know what, I’m gonna save you from that image and just gonna give you more of the Gaskets:

Now as a bonus, a very special Christmas gift to you from your friends over at Uncensored Interview. We really appreciate your patronage and your support (and your V-Sponses) so we thought we’d give you something of extreme value, and limitless importance – A Guide to the Big Happenings of the Next 100 Years.

We’re going above and beyond the usual call of 12 months of predictions and giving you the exclusive scoop on the next 1200 months. How can we, a humble upstart of a website, see that far ahead into the future? Simple, my future self, let’s call him F.S. for Future Shark, bought me a time machine for Christmas.

Don’t ask how this all happened, I don’t understand the whole “rip in the space-time continuum” thing, and neither does Jesus, and since this is his holiday, we shouldn’t question things that he doesn’t understand. Oh, and if Christmas isn’t your thing, don’t worry, feel free to accept this as a Chanukah gift, or a Kwanza gift, or a present for whatever odd holiday your weird religion celebrates around December:

THE UI GUIDE TO THE NEXT 100 YEARS

• Jesus will return to Earth, urging all of his followers to give up their earthly possessions, and preach to others to do so as well. The FBI becomes suspiscious when many of those possessions end up on Ebay the very next day, being sold under the screen name “Yahweh,” and trace the IP address back to Jesus’ secret compound in Montana. He will be arrested immediately and charged with perpetuating the largest pyramid scheme in history. The fact that the Holy Trinity is in the shape of a pyramid doesn’t help him in court, and neither does his infamous quote from John 3:11 “Now Peter and Paul, I know this sounds like a pyramid scheme, but it’s not…”
• Reinvigorated by the surprise success of Rocky Balboa, Sylvestor Stallone directs and stars in what will become his career-defining masterpiece, the tear jerking anti-terrorism arm wrestling extravanganza Over the Top 2: Forearms For Arms. The movie shatters all box office records, pulling in a ridiculous $2 trillion dollars, and kick starts a cultural shift in America that leads to the dismantling of the archaic and wholly inadequate court system. All matters of law are now decided in a much more civil and fair manner: a strap-to-strap forearm war.
• The Aids epidemic is finally abolished after the World Health Organization, in a last ditch effort to turn the tides of a losing battle, takes off the kids gloves and rolls out its’ “Just Stop Fucking Each Other in the Ass” campaign.
• Minority youth finally sell enough M+Ms to send their inner city basketball team to Sacramento, or Dallas, or wherever the fuck that tournament that they’re supposedly playing in is. Jesus signs on as coach.
• Congress finally comes to a consensus agreement on the exact intepretation of the 2nd amendment. Guns become completely illegal, but everyone gets a machete and a slingshot.
• The Amish finally get with it. Seriously.
• America elects what it believes is its first ever black president, but it turns out to just be an Italian guy with a really nice tan.
• Citing boredom, Jews cede ownership of the banks and the day-to-day operations of running the entire world over to the Illuminati.

So that, my friends, is what we have to look forward to over the next century. I’m sorry if I ruined your previously optimistic ideal of what the future holds for society, but let’s face it, we’re a loooooooooooooooong fuckin way from getting it right anytime soon, and unwarranted optimism will only get you two things right now: jack and shit.

So enjoy the new year, and the next 99 to come. And remember, if you ever get fed up with how things in the world are going, file your complaint with the Illuminati. Oh yeah, and keep checking Uncensored Interview all week for more from The Gaskets, as well as all your favorite indie artists. And remember, say no to drugs. Unless they’re prescription drugs.