Archive for August, 2002

WHA?

I just caught part of the rebroadcast of the MTV awards, and MTV has cut out all of parts with Eminem insulting Moby and Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, as well as all of the resulting booing. I can't understand why - Eminem should have to deal with what he did, so he has no right to having it cut to protect his interests. Also, isn't airing that good for ratings?

More MTV Awards

You can find more amusing MTV awards write-ups on these blogs - Dilettantism, Vain Selfish And Lazy, and best of all, I Know My First Name Is Jim.

7:58
The guy who plays Tony Soprano opens the show by introducing Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, who start yowling "The Rising" in the rain. Pretty typical Bruce, take it or leave it. Very bombastic. Very SERIOUS. Very something-that-MTV-is-doing-cos-we-need-to-remember-9/11. There are millions of kids all over the United States who are eating snack chips and talking amongst themselves waiting for the real show to start, I'm sure. All of the people on Bruce's stage look dour and pained, surely thinking to themselves "WE ARE DOING THIS FOR AMERICA! AMERICA NEEDS US!"

8:05
Jimmy Fallon enters in Eminem-as-Robin drag and does a parody of "Without Me". Then he goes on and does similar parodies of The White Stripes, Avril Lavigne, Nelly, Enrique Iglesias, Dave Matthews, during which Jimmy gets tackled by a fat man in a red shirt. The skit ends with James Brown coming out on stage to help Jimmy out, and there are giant screens blinking the name "James Brown" for all the people who might not know who he is.

8:15
Britney Spears is in a dominatrix outfit! She introduces Michael Jackson, who appears to have joined a superhero team. He's getting an "artist of the millenium" award for some reason. His voice has deepened a LOT. He does NOT sound himself. He's gained weight. Maybe he's not shed the weight from having his third child. This is deeply disturbing, like a scary dream. Everyone in the audience looks uncomfortable and confused, and so am I.

8:20
Brit-Dom gives No Doubt the first real award. I think Gwen is wearing a giant motorcycle seat as a dress.

9:26
A skanked-out Jennifer Love Hewitt introduces Pink, who performs her new single on a sofa. This song is like late 80s Cher. In fact, Pink is DRESSED like late 80s Cher, but without the g-string and gothed up considerably. It's pretty dominatrix-y too - after Britney's outfit and Gwen's black leather, it seems like we might have a full-on new trend going on here.

8:30
Kylie and Enrique Iglesias give Mary J. Blige an award for "No More Drama". Mary's in leather too, but not very s+m - it's more like 'big game hunter' or something. Mary brings up 9/11.

8:33
The Osbournes talk about the Viewer Choice Awards nominees. Sharon can't pronounce "Iglesias" - "In-glaaaay-zee-aaaace". It's funny.

8:38
Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, the pedophile's version of the Hilton sisters, give the "breakthrough video" award to The White Stripes, who are cute beyond all belief. They are easily the best dressed people in the building, Jack is in a white tux with a red shirt, and Meg's in a simple red dress.

8:42
B2K introduce Nas, Ashanti, and Ja Rule, who perform "Always On Time" with a 20s motif. Ja Rule looks very handsome in a tux, but still seems like he's just sexually harassing Ashanti on the street. Nas performs "One Mic", and it's really great, very intense. "We need peace in hip hop music!", he shouts at the end.

8:48
Anthony Kiedis and Brittany Murphy give Dashboard fucking Confessional the MTV2 viewer's choice award. I hate these guys.

8:56
The Jackass guys (in fake hipster white trash clothes/facial hair) present best rap video to Eminem. Nas was robbed!

9:04
Two guys each from P.O.D. and Linkin Park come out and give the best hip hop video (which is now distinct from 'best rap' for some reason) award to J. Lo and Ja Rule for "I'm Real". J. Lo is dressed surprisingly conservatively, but has had something terrible done to her hair - it's like she had a perm, slept on it, and then put on the dress.

9:09
Kate Hudson and Heath Ledger introduce Shakira, who does what can only be called an "ass dance", and then does a rocking song which is really crazy and wild. She's pretty nutty onstage. Kinda savage, really, like if you went up to her, she might bite your fingers.

9:10
Jimmy Fallon does a simultaneous Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkelman impression, and introduces Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson. Paula makes a fool of herself. Justin "Bobo" Guarini and Kelly "Pure Unholy Evil" Clarkson present the best new artist award to Avril Lavigne, who apparently only has one pair of clothes, like a cartoon character.

9:30
David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, who are both painful to watch, present the best rock video to Linkin Park. Linkin Park lack charisma entirely.

9:34
Mike Meyers introduces Eminem, who performs a big theatrical version of "White America" as a President giving a State of the Union Address, with an entire Senate and Congress of old white guy actors. Unfortunately, he rips off his clothes and performs his awful new single "Cleaning Out My Closet". Does Eminem have any idea what the implications that title phrase has, especially in the context of "I'm sorry, mama"; or is he intentionally playing with the "is he gay or isn't he" angle?

9:47
Carson Daly does a little tribute to Lisa Lopes. After many tears from the surviving members of TLC, Carson presents the best group video award to No Doubt. It's a very disturbing shift, frankly. Looking at Gwen again, it seems like her skirt is far more complex than I had thought - it's like motorcycle leather, all in bows, buckled to her crotch. Very peculiar.

9:58
Run DMC, who seem to have a career based entirely on appearing on this show every year, introduce P. Diddy who performs an over-the-top stage production of every recent Bad Boy hit he can squeeze into a four minutes. The weirdest part is when he does "Pass The Courvosier" with Busta Rhymes and back up dancers who are apparently outfitted with shin guards and laser-tag vests. Then Pharell comes out, and there's a million guys jumping around on bungee cords. It's pretty out of control, it looked like a playstation game on stage.

10:05
Avril Lavigne and Lisa Marie Presley present best female video to Pink, which let me down because I was hoping to see more of either Brit-Dom or that crazy Shakira. Pink proclaims onstage that she's "too drunk for this", and looks like she's going to pass out. Pink makes 1995-era Courtney Love seem really with-it and lucid.

10:15
J. Lo brings out Rudy Guiliani to applause, and some boos. Rudy talks about NYC and 9/11, and introduces Sheryl Crow. She performs a ballad with NYC/patriotic post-9/11 imagery on screens behind her. The song is an over-serious bombastic dirge, with a full string section. It's very tasteless, I think.

10:28
Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog torments Moby and Eminem.

10:30
Christina Aguilera is apparently dressed up as a deceased 80s Lower East Side whore, with a nose ring. It's amazing how she is able to make herself look trashier and trashier, by now this just shouldn't be possible, you know? She presents the best male award to Eminem, who is obviously reluctant to go onstage with her. It looks like he's being forced to talk to a drunk ex-girlfriend at a party. A large portion of the audience starts to boo at him, because he is threatening to attack Moby from the podium. Eminem is a very humorless man when he is not rapping.

10:34
Kirsten Dunst and Jimmy Fallon introduce the Hives, who do a good Monkees vs. Stones vs Stooges three-way impression with "Main Offender". They've got the "The Hives Are Law. You Are Crime" slogan on screens in the background, which is cool.

10:37
The Vines come out right after the Hives finish and perform "Get Free", which is catchier than the Hives song, but is pretty much just Silverch air Part II. They trash their equipment as they finish, just like good ol' Kurt would have.

10:46
Brandy introduces Justin Timberlake, who premieres his new single with a live band performing on a giant boom box. It starts out with acoustic guitars and that Neptunes beat. I already like this song, it's very appealing. It's the Michael Jackson that people want, not the monstrosity from the first hour. Clipse comes out and rhymes with an "I'm Your Pusha" t-shirt. Justin is far more sexual onstage than he usually is. The beat changes up, this really nice hypnotic beat, and Justin exits.

10:52
Jimmy Fallon does a skit as Lance Bass in space, but get this - he's actually doing a Will Ferrell-as-sleazy-bastard impression. It's really strange. The remainder of N'Sync (including Justin, who's clearly trying to make it known that he's still with them, even though he shouldn't be) present the viewer's choice award to Michelle Branch.

11:03
Nelly and Kelly Osbourne present video of the year, and Eminem beats out the White Stripes who rightfully deserve the award. (Well, actually, no - Weezer deserves it for "Keep Fishin'") Eminem is solemn and succinct.

11:07
Jimmy Fallon introduces Guns N' Roses with incredible, contagious enthusiasm. Axl and his new hired hands perform "Welcome To The Jungle". Axl looks terrible, he's got braids, his old voice is gone. They break into what I think must be a brand new song, and it's very, very lame. It's vaguely industrial, the keyboard riff reminds me of some of the worst Eminem backing tracks. It's really sad how poor his voice has become - it's like he's an Axl impersonator with half of the old Axl's range. Finally, they end the show with "Paradise City", which is probably a better way to go out than with that lousy new tune. Axl's new band is really embarassing to watch, by the way - it's like a whole band of that robot fella who was fired from Limp Bizkit for liking Radiohead too much.

11:16
Kurt Loder post-show interviews Jimmy Fallon, who is jumping around in glee after seeing GNR, who he clearly loves. Then Axl tells Kurt that Chinese Democracy STILL isn't done, and probably won't be out for a while because they are STILL recording.

Gleefully, I Went To Tell My Friends

I found Indie MP3 archives yesterday while checking out The Minor Fall, The Major Lift's link section. The purpose of the site is to post MP3s of obscure 80s UK indie singles, which is particularly intriguing for me since that is an area of music which I know very little about, so it's a good education.

Not everything in the archive is particularly good, and it seems like some of these bands were falling all over themselves to nick both Johnny Marr's guitar style AND Morrissey's deliverary. However, I do begin to wonder whether The Smiths were as amazingly seminal as I assume they were, or if they were in fact borrowing crucial elements of their sound from their peers in the UK scene at the time. The songs that aren't very Smiths-y at all are still pretty typical of the 80s UK indie that I have heard, which is to say there's nothing here that doesn't sound dated.

The songs that I like the most that are currently in the archive are We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It's "Rules And Regulations", which is fun and catchy girl-punk number; Age Of Chance's frantic "Bible Of The Beats"; Mighty Mighty's "Everybody Knows The Monkey", which is sort of like Morrissey singing with Unrest; Room's mellow "Here Comes The Floor"; the June Brides' peppy "No Place Called Home"; and both Shop Assistants songs.

Recommended Radio Realaudio

Joseph Epstien, author of Snobbery: The American Version is interviewed on this week's episode of WFMU's Speakeasy. Randy Cohen, New York Times Magazine's 'The Ethicist' was also interviewed on the show a few weeks back promoting his new book. Both are very interesting and entertaining interviews.

Democracy Now has a very depressing story about the LAPD "accidentally" destroying biological evidence in over a thousand sexual assault cases since 1995, and a case in which a man was jailed for eleven years after being incorrectly identified as one woman's rapist.

"The Air Is Heavy....um, Heavy As A TRUCK?

Those interested in hearing U2's new single "Electrical Storm" should try out this site, which has three mirrors to download the song from, as well as the lyrics. I've heard it, and I just think it's mediocre, competant but uninspired. It reminds me a lot of "Staring At The Sun" from Pop, but with some leftover All That You Can't Leave Behind bombast on the choruses. They can do a lot better than this, but it's not awful. It's at least a lot better and a great measure more subtle than the over-the-top saccharine on most of All That You Can't Leave Behind, so I'm grateful for that. Oh, and judging by the transcript, Bono's lyrics aren't getting any better... (Note: this link is no longer working as of late this afternoon - I guess this, and all the other sites hosting the song got hit with cease and desist orders from Interscope - sorry. Check your favorite file sharing service, I'm sure you'll be able to find it easily.)

All I've Got Inside Is Vacancy

I'm guessing that today's sudden burst of search engine referrals looking for Redd Blood Cells mp3s might have something to do with the small article about that project in yesterday's New York Times. If you've come here looking for them, I'm sorry, but I can't really help you unless you go on Soulseek. You can download them from me there...

My Heart Is Drenched In Wine

I'd only ever read about Norah Jones in two ways - either in frivolous industry shill "new faces in pop" fluff magazine pieces, or as a person maligned in other publications for being a shiny, packaged "new face in pop". I remember a Wall Street Journal article about her, in which the writer was going on about how she's on Blue Note and how that's bothering a lot of people cos she's not really a jazz performer so much as a lite adult pop singer and that the label's future might have more to do with folks like her than with traditional jazz. I'm not too concerned about Blue Note, so I don't really care what new artists the label wants to promote so long as they keep their back catalog in print. The point is, I think that from what I'd read, I had made up my mind that I didn't care about actually hearing Norah Jones, not even enough to form a positive or negative feeling about her. This goes for a lot of new artists on major labels - I've come to distrust those labels so much that if the artist isn't imposed on me somehow, I don't feel particularly motivated to hear their artists at all.

Last night, I saw Jones' video for "Don't Know Why" while channel surfing, and I was very pleasantly surprised - it's a really nice little song. It's not going to change the world, it's not original, it's just a good little song sung by a girl with a pleasant voice. It seemed really out of place on MTV2, too - it's slow, quiet, understated. I'm not used to hearing anything this gentle and calm on music television either, so that's a plus. It's also extremely unhip in a way that appeals to me a lot right now, after spending half of the past year hearing far too much music that in spite of its quality still seems a little too selfconciously "now". The song was worth downloading, and I'll probably try out the rest of the record too. If nothing, it's a good substitute for Fiona Apple until she ever makes another record.

Yeah, I like Fiona Apple. Fuck off. I like a lot of square music.

Can't Hear The Revolution

Here's a very interesting post re: mainstream vs. underground hip hop from Dead Pirate Crunchy on Barbelith:

if the argument is about lyrical politics, i would much rather listen to and think about the complex politics of 'apolitical' commercial pop than the semipolitical liberal posturings of self-consciously 'conscious' pop intellectuals - i.e. bootylicious is every bit as political as sarah jones, but since it doesn't try to resolve its contradictions into a polemic it leaves more room for thought. classic example of this is the abysmal 'we need a revolution' by dead prez, where they attempt to 'improve' aaliyah's 'we need a resolution' by dropping her (soft, feminine, emotive) lyrics and replacing them with their own (hard, masculine, political). the result is little more than whinging socialists with patently dubious sexual politics telling us we need revolution - a terrific insight, sure, but nothing on the way aaliyah's voice combined with timbaland's faltering beats on the original to evoke the tensions and doubts of a failing relationship (which has more application in my political projects than 'one solution, revolution' leninist crap). moreover, aaliyah says more to me about revolution than anyone who actually says 'revolution' ever has.

Corny, I Know, But You Had Better Believe It

I know that this isn't exactly high quality blog fare, but I do feel a need to express this - I really hope that I get a chance to talk to Jarvis Cocker someday, so that I can thank him for having written the song "I Love Life" with Pulp. I love the way the song feels like a gentle, sincere hug when I feel uncertain, depressed, or confused. I appreciate the way that the song embraces pure unconditional love of the whole of life, not just the good parts. I love how earnest and sincere the song is, even if it feels the need to sort of apologize about it by admitting that its sentiments are 'corny' halfway through. Everything about the song seems brave and defiant to me, and it means a lot to me. This is easily one of my favorites songs from the past few years.

Nobody Listens To Hear Intelligent Callers

After finding very little in the way of information about Bob Lassiter, who had been featured on a series of episodes of WFMU's Aircheck, I decided to contact WFMU to ask for more information. After being referred to a few different folks there, I got the information from The Audio Kitchen's host, The Professor. Here's what the Professor has to say -

...Bob Lassiter is NOT on the air now. And according to
him, he may never be back on the air. He was canned back in 1999 from
WFLA in Tampa. Actually, they didn't renew his contract. He started
bitching about how management wasn't dealing with him fairly, and then
they let him go.

As far as recordings, there are aircheck collectors out there who have
some. In fact, I've traded with one of them. He's here -
http://www.webpost.net/ai/Airchecks/index.html

The Professor was also kind enough to send along a biographical article about Lassiter from six years ago. Here's a few choice excerpts:



If you had tuned to talk station WFLA-AM Friday, August 2, you might have heard nothing, for ten minutes. It wasn't a mistake, or a power outage. It was a showdown.

Normally, more than a second or two of dead air would be disaster-- the surest way to lose listeners. But on the Bob Lassiter Show, which isoften a little more, or a little less, than a call-in radio show-- the silence was riveting.

Lassiter has built a career on pushing the limits of radio, and his mischief has made him more successful, and more disliked, than most talk show hosts. His nightly call-in show garners a larger audience share than any other on Tampa Bay radio.

And sometimes it ain't pretty. When he decides to pick a fight with a caller, and he does quite often, he can be vicious, sarcastic, or hang up with great gusto. Yet, if he deems a caller especially annoying or lame, he might just clam up and let the person make a fool of himself, and hang up in surrender.

This time a caller turned the silence into a dare.

"I can outwait you, Bobby."

Lassiter lit a cigarette.

"I've got a 120 minutes on this cell phone."

All listeners could hear was a five thousand watt transmitter broadcasting the ambient rustle and whir of a man driving his car and a talk host lightly tapping his fingers on the console.

"Come on, Bob," the guy pleaded after three desolate minutes.

Four minutes later, Lassiter lit another Winston and exhaled. The man had been ignored for over eight and a half minutes when he capitulated: "All right Bob, I'm not worthy. I'm pulling into my house."

No reaction.

"I've gotta drop. You win . . . You're the king."

No answer.

Then after remaining mute for 9 minutes and 52 seconds, Lassiter did what he had to do-- he pushed two buttons, one to hang up the phone, and another to start the recorded station ID/news intro. It was 8:00 after all. On the other side of the headlines, weather, and some commercials, Lassiter explained: "What the hell could I do? He challenged my manhood. . . Don't call up and play games like that with me!" Five nights a week there is a continuing drama on WFLA, and Bob Lassiter is always the hero.

...

By the time Lassiter left town for a million-dollar deal at WLS in Chicago in 1989, he was the biggest talk show host in town-- in both popularity and sheer mass, weighing in around 320. During his six and a half year absence from WFLA, he lost 90 of those pounds and a little momentum in his radio career. In that time talk radio exploded around the country, much of it driven by right-wing political showmen like Limbaugh, Liddy, and WFLA's Mark Larson.

Lassiter calls the trend "support group radio," and says he hears too much of it on WFLA these days. "The vast majority of their core listenership wants to hear Clinton bashing. There's no debate, no discussion on that radio station." Which sounds noble, even political, but he doesn't pretend his program is forum for ideas. The debate on Lassiter's show is as likely to be a petty argument as a real discussion. "I'm not a political animal," Lassiter admits. "I'm not trying to make a point. I'm just trying to get provocative calls . . . It makes no difference if I change anyone's mind, or influence anyone to do something. It's not the point of my show."

So what is the point?

Lassiter has said on the air that his only purpose in life is "to deliver a lot of people to listen to the commercials," and more often than not, he does that by irritating the hell out of people. "The secret to my success is that the people who despise me listen to me," Lassiter says. "Probably no one has more listeners that hate him than I do."

...

At 50, Bob Lassiter is a radio veteran, for half his life he's made a living as a personality, a voice . . . and what a voice, a magnificent baritone that seduces and taunts with equal authority. A high school dropout from a Jersey suburb of Philadelphia, Lassiter spent early adulthood wandering the country and working odd jobs. Radio discovered him at a crowded happy hour on the island of St. Thomas in 1970. A salesman from a beautiful music station heard his rich speaking voice, and soon the future Mad Dog of radio was playing sides of Mantovani in the Caribbean.

After years as a music DJ around the eastern U.S., he longed to break into talk. In '84 he got his chance on a low rated Miami talk station, where he caught the ear of talk monster Neil Rogers. In Miami, Lassiter tutored under the lashing wit and acidic irreverence of Rogers, who at the time was one of the few big city pioneers who were making it big by bending the rules of talk radio-- by being outrageous, vulgar, and often mean. Lassiter became so adept at it that after a grueling succession of air shifts he hollered at a caller: "You're so full of shit your eyes are brown!" Which cost him his job.

Then at Tampa Bay's first all talk station, the now defunct WPLP, Lassiter perfected his trademark monologue. "It dawned on me that if I talked for an hour, hour and a half, by the time I stopped these people weren't rational. And then I would just rip them to shreds."

...

As a radio bully, Lassiter's biggest weapons are his mouth and his often misanthropic mind. Most nights he opens his show with a bit of oratory-- a story, a lecture, or maybe a complicated question. Within his words he typically sets a trap with outrageous statements or ideas that dare listeners to pick up the phone and challenge him...

While he's full of haughty bluster and vulgar as the FCC allows, Lassiter's approach is surprisingly intellectual for talk radio. "I do a 2-tier show," he admits. "I do a show for half the audience that understands what I'm doing, so the half that don't can amuse the other half." It's the callers that don't understand that often makes his show entertaining. "Nobody listens to hear intelligent callers," contends Lassiter.

...

"I approach my show in pretty much the same way that a lawyer approaches a trial," Lassiter says. And when he's particularly prickly, his show resembles a kangaroo court where Lassiter is prosecutor, judge and jury. "If the caller is saying things you don't want said, you basically just let him keep on talking . . . " Lassiter explains. "And sooner or later he will say something that is inaccurate and then you destroy him on that one issue which shakes his credibility, and allows you to go away looking like a star."

His adversarial stance often leads him to take the side of societal underdogs-- minorities and the underclass-- but don't call him a liberal. "I have no left-leaning feelings," Lassiter says. "I don't believe government is the answers to our problems."

...

While he ain't no bleeding heart, he's worlds away from the right-wing yuppie perspective of WFLA's late-morning guy, Mark Larson. Typically, Larson's callers don't challenge him much. Most agree that adults that earn the minimum wage are losers, folks on welfare are barely human, and that imprisoned criminals deserve outright torture. When Larson does tussle over the phone, it's not usually with liberals, but with racists, Jew haters, or anti-government wackos. Although he's forced to censure some of the hatred he attracts, there is one minority that is always fair game on his show-- homosexuals, specifically gay men. Each Wednesday on the show is Hump Day, reserved specifically for gay bashing and chuckle-packed homophobia. Larson and his callers engage in cliché imitations of effeminate men and mean spirited juvenile
humor. Larson constantly refers to gay males as "fudgepackers," and suggests that many AIDS victims deserve their fate. During the recent GALA festival, a huge gathering of gay and lesbian entertainers from around the world, the persecution rose to a fevered pitch.

"It is absolutely inexcusable," says Lassiter. On his show he's countered the weekly hatefest by openly wondering why Larson spews abuse on a harmless minority, and says he'll keep it up until he shames him out of it.

...

"It's not a public service, it's a business," acknowledges Lassiter. "You don't have a right to radio, or to good radio."

...



I'm a bit disappointed in some ways - for some reason, I wasn't expecting Lassiter to be so extremely cynical, though I can't quite understand why. Listening to the tapes played on Aircheck, I had the impression that he was a brainy left-leaning, pro-equality guy who had somehow found his way on the air in a town full of people who just didn't get him at all, and it was more about him reacting to them and not vice versa. I feel a bit naive, but it doesn't make what I've heard any less interesting, or make him any less intelligent and talented.

Thanks again to The Professor!


How's This For A Compromise?

I think an ideal music venue would be smoke-free in the main room/stage area, and there could be a dedicated smoking lounge somewhere else in the building, where the people in the room can watch the show on closed-circuit big-screen tv until they come back to the main room. This is not unreasonable, and it is respectful of smokers and non-smokers alike. There is no good reason why non-smokers should be at the mercy of smokers because they want to see live entertainment. There's also no good reason why non-smoking entertainers should be forced to do their job in smokey rooms because of a horrible status quo.

So Hurry Up And Bring Yr Jukebox Money

ASCAP are suing a small bar for playing records by their artists (in this case, Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi) without paying their annual $2,818 fee. Russ is right on about this - why should free advertising and exposure be subject to fines and fees, especially in the case of artists who clearly aren't having any trouble moving records and selling concert tickets? The article doesn't make it clear whether or not the songs are being played on a jukebox or not - if it is being played on a jukebox, I can see how the artists might deserve royalties since the proprieter of the business is profitting from their music, but if it's just being played over a stereo, that's just unfair.

Why Is "Fifth Member" In Quotations? He IS The Fifth Member! It's Not Like He's Murray The K Or Something!

I fail to see how Badger can describe this hateful, ingnorant, personal diatribe against Jim O'Rourke as being 'rational'. Honest, maybe. Articulate, possibly. But certainly not rational - it's all vicious hyperbole, mindless bile aimed at a person who I really don't think is worth getting worked up about. I don't trust this guy at all, and his willingness to go along with the ridiculous notion that Sonic Youth are in an "obvious decline", or worse, that their work (or the simple fact that O'Rourke is now a member of the band) must be 'groundbreaking' is little more than sub-Amy Phillips anti-music drivel. For me, that would have automatically destroyed the writer's credibility, but the title "Jim O'Rourke: Fat, Soulless Fuck" already did that before I read the first sentence, especially since Jim O'Rourke is not a particularly fat man. I have no time for childish, fatphobic, bitter former music students, and I'm very irritated that I just wasted my time reading that article.

Some blog notes - first, I added a new set of recommended songs for this week. Second, I decided to drop the comments service I was using because it was disrupting the load time of this page, and was acting sort of flakey when it wasn't. If you feel compelled to respond, either write something in the guestbook area ("Tell Me Nice Things"), or email me.

Disturbing Toy That I Found In The Mall Today:

A Tusken Raider Female and Child set of Star Wars action figures, which I presume is meant so that small children can reenact the "Anakin Skywalker on a genocidal rampage" scene from Attack Of The Clones. It doesn't really console me much to think that maybe it's just guys over 20 buying this particular toy, either.

Rolling My Eyes

In one sentence, Michael Sangiacomo destroys what little journalistic credibility that he and Newsarama ever had:

In his classic, powerful yet understated style, writer Mark Millar says more about battered relationships in one story than I learned in my college psychology courses.

I really do hope that Mr. Sangiacomo went to a terrible college...

For those who haven't seen it - he's talking about the scene in the new issue of The Ultimates (aka The Avengers updated for new audiences) in which Giant Man beats up and psychologically tortures his wife, The Wasp. It's ham fisted, it feels tacked-on, it's typical Millar sensationalism. In the context of his recent work, which involves all sorts of severe (often sexual) torture of women and gay men for the sake of shock value, I think that this scene reveals to me more about Millar's faux-liberal denial about his own misogynistic and homophobic tendencies than it does about Giant Man being a horrible prick. If there's any real depth to Millar's writing it is accidental - the man writes without grace, it only ever becomes really interesting when you read his work with several layers of detachment.