Of Monsters and Men would like to invite you to the Polk party, the party with the Polk

Apparently, HBO was auctioning off its wardrobe for "Carnivàle."

I’ve tried to not be a hater. Having kids who love pop radio will do that – you find yourself digging stuff like BOB and Taylor Swift and Neon Trees when you probably would have pooped all over it as a snobbish college newspaper music reviewer.

But sometimes the old venom, that evil juice that once made me rage over Dave Matthews, starts to boil up again. Like when Mumford & Sons played “Saturday Night Live” last year. It’s not horrid, but it’s sneaky and subversive. Yes, these heart-throb Brits play instruments that you don’t typically find on a Billboard hit. But the writing is still typical Billboard fare, albeit weaker than some of the best stuff. Don’t try and sell me bluegrass or even New Grass when it’s really just Katy Perry dressed in old-timey clothes and played with banjos and fiddles instead of heavy synths and guitars.

This old-timey thing is definitely a trend. The next big shit to come out of nowhere was The Lumineers (not the Luminaries), a band of weird looking folk dressed, yet again, like it was the 1840s. Only this time the underlying pop element was replaced with some faux indie-emo thing, complete with yelps designed to sound like a railroad song or “O Brother Where Art Thou?”, only it ends up sounding like a small dog with rabies.

Fact: President James Polk died of diarrhea.

The website Funny Or Die was all over this just last month in a pretty funny "Which Is The Better Band" feature.

Which leads us to Of Monsters and Men which, besides having an insanely bad and pretentious name, represent the worst of the bunch because they unabashedly rip off both in terms of look, feel and sound, complete with the very same clothes from when Polk was president and the very same yelping deployed by the Lumineers.

Please, some one tell me the difference between THIS and THIS.

Again, it’s not that any of the three suck on ice. They all play well, sing well and form a tight unit in a live setting. It’s the obvious factory-like ways of the music industry that’s so annoying. Did the suits encourage Of Monsters and Men to go shopping at a retro mid-1800s store? Where would you even find such a store? What about the hey-ho yelping? There’s no way that’s a coincidence.

Of Monsters and Men will be at Philadelphia’s Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing on June 8. But it might end up being Lumineers or Mumford & Sons. Who will even know the difference?

Phoenix on 'SNL': Old dudes play boring alt-pop

Phoenix: 'SNL' and Coachella see the next big thing. I see this.

Not sure if anyone else has noticed, but aside from the occasional big pop star score (Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Frank Ocean) “Saturday Night Live’s” musical guests have stunk on ice, especially the rock offerings.

It’s almost as if Lorne Michaels and Co. were trying to make modern duplicates of some of my horrid mock 1980s musical guest-host pairings, using my Don Pardo impression.

Sarandon: Genius in 'Fright Night.'

“Musical guest...Wall of Voodoo! With your host … Edie McClurg!” Or, “Musical guest The Domino’sNoid!”
… After the Fire! With your host … Chris Sarandon!” Or, “Musical guest … Kajagoogoo! … with your host …

It’s true, there’s been some names. “SNL” recently had Muse, world conquerors who have been on the cover of Rolling Stone. This off-key, ham-fisted collection of douchebags also sound like a modern-rock version of The Fixx covered in steaming cow dung.

They had The Lumineers, who are still hot shit at the moment. I checked it out, wondering what all the fuss was about … yeah, as expected, it’s just a bunch of Renaissance Faire rejects dressing up like its 1880 playing your typical pop stuff, just with old-timey instruments.

McClurg: An early Melissa McCarthy.

And now we have Phoenix, which might just be the most infuriating of all. These Frenchies came out and played pleasant enough pop tunes with a decent bounce, including the Cure-esque “Entertainment” and the bouncy “Trying To Be Cool.”

But they’ve been around since 1995 which, despite the best efforts of those of us careening into our late 30s, is a long-ass time ago. Singer Thomas Mars looks like he’s about 49. This is a big band? This is an act worthy of an “SNL” spot and a headlining gig at Coachella? Really? Why do they get the nod over 100 other worthy bands who've been waiting their turn for decades?

Only Thom Yorke makes more stupid looking faces.

Maybe the real culprits are the “SNL” folks, who are now clearly enslaved by Budweiser and their musical tastes. Yup, there’s the problem.

Phoenix is our area on May 12 for the WRFF Radio 104.5 6th Birthday Show, at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, N.J. They'll be playing alongside acts like Paramore, Passion Pit, and, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who are probably along to make Phoenix look younger to the kiddie crowd.