Notes from the Underground

Four Loko back on shelves

Other than getting excited floods of unintelligible text messages from all your friends, you may have noticed Four Loko, America’s best worst beverage is back in action—sort of.

Late last year, the FDA brought the hammer down on Four Loko and other drinks like it—drinks that contained various energy-providing supplements in addition to large amounts of alcohol. The ban followed an incident at Washington State University in which several underage drinkers consumed too much Loko and became sick.

The ban, which went into effect on Nov. 17, 2010, saw many stores liquidating their Loko stock.

As of now, Loko is back in fine form. All flavors are present and accounted for—fruit punch, orange, “uva,” blue raspberry, watermelon, lemonade, cranberry lemonade and lemon-lime. The cans look virtually the same, except they no longer boast their energy supplements, instead telling us about Loko’s artificial flavors and plethora of dye numbers. You can find the new, decaf Four Loko at the market on Park Avenue and Market Street. The Rockstar drinks are a scant few feet from the Loko (hint, hint).

Grails coming out with new album soon

Portland is one of the strangest cities in the country. We have tons of talented bands, a given, but while we’re too busy being fixated on the newest bands who play in weird tunings and use three delay pedals, we have great bands who are famous everywhere outside of Portland. Grails is one of them.

Joining many other bands in this category, such as Lebenden Toten, Richmond Fontaine, Grouper and others, Grails has announced the release of “Deep Politics,” due out in March on Temporary Residence records, capturing the attention of no more than 36 Portlanders.

The new Grails material is a little more abstract than the older stuff, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s being touted as “longer than your attention span, but richer than your desserts.” After hearing a couple sneak previews, I’d have to agree.

America cares way more about Katy Perry than you think

Now that 2010 is over, the numbers are in—Katy Perry sold no less than 12 million combined copies of her single “California Girls” to unsuspecting Americans last year.

I’d like to take this opportunity to rant a little. I don’t know if I’m just getting older, or if I have more access to information or what, but pop music seems to get worse and worse every year. Katy Perry is no exception, as it is awful tripe.

2010 was also the year of Justin Bieber, but he gets a pass because he’s very young (even though he actually called himself “the Kurt Cobain of his generation”). Katy Perry, however, is a complete media tool, and pushing 30. Her latest hit, “Firework,” literally has some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever read (Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?). What’s more, it took five people to write.

Is pop music even trying anymore? Do our tolerances for bad music weaken each passing year? Are young peoples’ minds so utterly helpless against the Internet juggernaut that marketing companies don’t have to try anymore? Is psychology much more of a lucrative degree than I originally thought? Stay tuned for these answers in next year’s post-2011 column.