V/A - Gimmie Skelter

Year: 2003

Label: Buddyhead

Man, was Buddyhead killing it a few years ago. The yin to Vice Magazine's yang. That website, and more specifically it's gossip section, took no prisoners in a full-on culture war. Using connections and in-roads into the belly of the beast, Travis Keller and Aaron North had access to some of the heavy hitters in the Los Angeles entertainment industry, and used those connections with vicious results. They made it their life's work to dethrone those they deemed unworthy of their spots in pop culture, and usurp them with their own selections of what was worthy (usually their own bands, or their friends...but fuck, what else are you going to do?). They were arbiters of cool, and relished in their positions of privilege atop the hippest heap of the moment. 

I thought they were fucking hilarious, and while Buddyhead the website still exists and the record label still puts out records, they've sorted shifted their focus and energies away from the gossip and vitriol, and more towards being a music website. Of course, they still have no problems telling you how great their tastes are, and how much you should cower to their whims, but maybe in their old age they've calmed down a bit.

This compilation was ridiculed by one half of Buddyhead upon it's release with the comment, "compilations are like tampons, they're for pussies". Of course. 

The bands are:

Iggy Pop

Mudhoney

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Pleasure Forever

Burning Brides

Primal Scream

Dead Meadow

The Starvations

Beehive + The Barracudas

Your Enemies Friends

Le Tigre

Wire

Radio Vago

Cave In

Weezer

The Icarus Line

Shat

Nardwuar

DL