Excellent news: The Natural Riot, the new record by the Shimmer Kids Underpop Association is out (though I unfortunately haven’t recieved my copy yet), and judging by the two songs streaming in the Kids’ audio section, it sounds like we’re in for another great lo-fi psychedelic pop record. “Burning Bridges” in particular sounds wonderful.

Ierne makes a great point on Barbelith about those who feel The Who are doing the wrong thing by touring despire John Entwistle’s recent death:

To be fair, a band can’t just drop a big tour like that – that’s a lot of people potentially out of work: road crew, tour management staff, lighting & sound engineers, caterers, drivers…the odds of all those people getting booked on another tour that size on such short notice is close to nil.

But I wish Pete would have just said that, instead of getting all pretentious with talk of “big and little people”. He of all people should know that on the road, everyone has an essential part to play and there is no “big” or “little”; one person goes AWOL or doesn’t do their job and the gig’s fucked.

Weezer’s new video for “Keep Fishin'” makes me smile ear-to-ear whenever I see it. It’s so cute, so cuddly, so obviously going to be played on the video channels a billion times over from now til the end of time. I’m glad that they made that video for one of my favorite Weezer songs, too. While yr in the audio/visual section, you should maybe check out the 25 new songs they’ve posted in their mp3 section. Most of them are pretty dull, but “Hey Domingo!”, “Mad Kow”, “Modern Dukes”, “Mo’ Beats”, “The Story Is Wrong”, and “The Organ Player” are pretty decent. Judging by the new songs, it looks like the band is easing up on the rawk, and adding a lot of keyboards – making them sound a bit like the later Superchunk records.

Can anyone tell me where I can find information about Bob Lassiter? Lassiter is/was a talk radio personality who apparently has been on the air in several radio markets throughout the United States. Aircheck has begun to broadcast portions of his show on WFLA in Tampa Bay, and I find that I really like this smug, condescending guy who delights in taking calls from irate listeners who want him to get off the air. I’ve been looking around on Google, but I can’t find much in the way of biographical information, interviews, or broadcast history.