Ed. Note: Rocks Off does not advocate trying any of the products mentioned in this article (even if they exist) or, really, following any of Jef With One F's advice about anything at all.
When Marilyn Manson put out Mansinthe, that was cute. Then David Lynch put out his own brand of coffee, and anyone who has seen a Lynch film will tell you that nothing makes more sense than him putting out his own coffee.
However, Pink Floyd wine? Rolling Stones wine? This trend needs to be stopped as soon as possible.
Wine is Rocks Off's drink of choice, and not in a good way. Our gig bag contains two changes of clothes, a notebook for song ideas, a copy of Michael Shilling's Rock Bottom, a couple of spare mike cables, and usually two of those four-packs of Gallo Merlot that you see on sale for $4.
For those who haven't tried it, it's wine for people who are going to die on a very dirty mattress. We point this out to show that it's not that we think wine is too upper-crust for rock and roll, far from it. It's that we don't feel artists are attaching their names to the vices that more accurately tie into their existence. In that spirit, we humbly present the following five suggestions.
One of the best tracks of the Ramone's self-titled 1976 debut is "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," and they are certainly not alone in singing about the inhalant fad of the 1970s and '80s. The Dead Milkmen and Beastie Boys have also mentioned huffing the fumes from model airplane glue, and there was even an influential punk zine called Sniffin' Glue.
Dee Dee Ramone insisted in many interviews that he hadn't sniffed glue since trying it a few times at age eight, but Legs McNeil's Please Kill Me has some pretty convincing words with Dee Dee over glue use by both Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, who apparently stuck to glue because other drugs either made him sick or freak out.
Regardless, many brands of model airplane glue still contain a wonderful assortment of hazardous chemicals that will result in highs and brain damage - mostly brain damage, so why not tie on the Ramones' name to one of them?
Whiskey normally has a pleasant woody brown color to it, but it only gets that way from the wood of the barrels it ages in. Last year, Death's Door White Whisky started production under the helm of Brian Ellison, and the result is a clear whiskey that is aged for no more than 72 hours. It's a new and exciting kind of blend, clear as water and adding a unique flavor to traditional whiskey-based cocktails like Manhattans.
We think this product could do well with an endorsement from Ke(dollar sign)ha, who has in the past expressed her love of carrying around water bottles full of whisky. By utilizing White Whisky, the cops wouldn't know you were actually drinking until you started kissing them and then threatened to kick their ass for judging you with their eyes.
