TIME TO ROCK.

Get in your car and CRANK THIS and roll down the street and get more respect than you know what to do with.

Dude, did you hear that keyboard??? WHAT.

I promise if you listen to this from beginning to end, you will feel illegally high.

“Can’t you see / you belong with Friday Face-Offs!” FRIDAY FACE-OFFS!

And now, let us never speak of Taylor Swift again.

Have a great weekend.

Can I be serious for a second? One of my favorite things about Friday Face-Offs (this incredible internet thing I do every so often, like as in right now) is finding videos, where, I’m like, “Man, these people are great. The people in this video just seem soooo cool and awesome.” It makes me feel so happy! I’m not even kidding, guys! I know sometimes I come across as a grump (one of my 2010 goals is to smile more and look friendly instead of existentially constipated) but deep down I really like people and it makes me excited when people decide to get awesome.

Like, have you ever stayed out late with a good friend drinking and people-watching and suddenly you get this charged feeling, like “Holy shit everyone at this bar/cafe/club is JAMMING right now, everyone within my purview is fuckin’ COLD CHILLIN’ and having a GREAT time … everything’s gonna be okay, humanity is not destined to destroy itself, we just might make it!”

I had this feeling once at a bus station in Virginia in the middle of the night and it was AMAZING.

Also I had it with a good friend at that bar “Tryst” in Washington, D.C. (Famous cafe/bar where everyone’s updating their blogs all the time.) We were sitting at the window watching all the other bars let out and it was one of those scenes where nobody was mad at anyone and everyone was just holding it down like 5,000%.

All this to say, I get a real nice vibe from these two:

I LOVE YOU GUYS. I have rented us a van and I am going to drive you around the country and you will perform Taylor Swift songs for the people of this great nation while sitting on your sofa and I will sell t-shirts that say “WE’RE DOING THIS” and we will make lots of money and at the end of every song you will hold your head in your hands like you do in this video in that special way that makes me so happy so if you’re ready to execute this amazing plan text “MNFTIU TOUR BEGINS ASAP” to 2350926094641123.

FRIDAY FACE-OFFS!!! “I’m on the bleachers.”

I’m loving the bassist pretty hard. Are you kidding? (0:50)– game face is ON.

And notice how sad the drummer is after nailing the fill at (2:09). Yeah, she’s basically pretty sad.

But really? Watch this whole video and maintain your focus on the bassist and then get to (3:17) and tell me you’re not feeling irie.

My one criticism is the extreme disparity between the guitar amp and the bass amp. Poor kid is running his “thunderbroom” through some 1X12 Peavey while she’s got like a Marshall cab or something? C’mon, guys. FAIR IS FAIR.

EXACTLY. (0:50) BRING IT HARD OR GO HOME THIS IS FRIDAY FACE-OFFS!!! (2:20)

I like this video because it’s basically how I sing along to any song released after 1995 — with an inarticulate mixture of crushing boredom and flashes of rage.

Friday Face-Offs! WE THROW GUITARS

What I like about this one is that, judging from the Christmas tree, and how blindingly shiny the headstock of that Epiphone is, we are witnessing the ol’ “first song played on the new Christmas guitar” ritual, like she tore off the wrapping paper and was like, “Oh hell yeah, the electric guitar I asked for! Mom and Dad you’re the best — now set up the video camera I’m about to SET IT OFF like a one-woman Shaggs guitar-tone cover band except I’m gonna sing that Taylor Swift song everyone likes!”

LOL, for what is Taylor Swift, if not an upper-middle-class one-woman Shaggs, y’know?

“Taylor, I’m a let you finish, but ‘My Pal Foot Foot’ is one of the best videos of all time!”

ALSO: From the user’s video description: Christmas 2009 – on to the next level

F*R*I*D*A*Y F*A*C*E*O*F*F*S

I like this more than I should.

SPOILER: It’s two guys, right?

The diagram of the screen would be:

1 – 1 – 2
2 – 2 – 1

Where 1 = “Belushi Jr.”
And 2 = “Johnny Cheekbones”

Friday Face-Offs! EXPLORING THE FLUID NATURE OF ONLINE IDENTITY SINCE 2042.

The only thing badder-asseder than wearing an old grungy gas mask while you play your drum kit … is wearing a shiny, spotless, I’m-not-trying-to-buy-army-surplus, brand-new gas mask while you play your electronic drum kit. Almost makes me wonder if the mask and the drums are sold as a set … maybe in the “Chemical Ali Memorial Corner” at Guitar Center?

The drums sound so killer at the beginning of the song! “Gas mask keepin’ it in the pocket.”

Also, dig the honorary 3rd member of this band, a creature drawn to 5-string basses like a moth to flame (0:49).

FRIDAY FACE OFFS! “WHAT YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR HAS BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME”

Time for another Friday Face-Offs! HOLD ON TO YOUR FACE OR IT MIGHT FALL OFF

This week’s Friday Face-Off is “You Belong With Me” by Cannibal Corpse Taylor Swift. Watch the original here:

Decent song. I picked it over Myley Csirus’s (sp) “Party in the USA,” which I find banal (save for that “zweet zwoot” sound in the chorus).

YEAH, I SAID IT: I FIND “PARTY IN THE USA” BANAL. She writes a whole song about that one time she was in a car and heard Jay-Z on the radio??? Like she’s Proust and “99 Problems” is a madeleine? C’mon, I hear Jay-Z all the time — you don’t hear me writing a song about it. (Can’t even tell if this rant makes sense, but screw it; I’m really down on “Party in the USA.”)

Besides, Taylor Swift and Milee Crysysz both get crushed by my girl Kelly Clarkson. Goddamn, why haven’t I done a “Since U Been Gone” FFO? That would be a scorched-earth internet phenom.

ANYHOO … let’s get this started! Friday Face-Offs! First contestant is up next!