Archive for 2003

The Walls Are Jagged And Expanding

Good news, Malkmus fans – there’s a brand new post-Pig Lib song in circulation, and you can download it right here. This recording of the “Untitled New Song” is taken from the Jicks’ 3/28/03 show in Rotterdam at the Motel Mozaique Festival. It’s a real winner if I do say so myself, and the sound quality is pretty high. In addition to the new song, you can also download their cover of “Never My Love” from the same show.

This incredibly beautiful version of “Old Jerry” is taken from the 3/21/03 Portland Jicks show.

You can download the complete, unedited concerts that these tracks were taken from at the Acid Casualties Jicks site, but be kind – they’ve been having all sorts of bandwidth problems. If you’ve got access to Soulseek or other decent p2p programs, you really ought to just download the show from there.

Here’s some more excellent psychedelia for you:

Mark Wirtz “(He’s Our Dear Old) Weatherman”

The Cryan’ Shames “Greenburg, Glickstein, Charles, David Smith, and Jones”

Chad & Jeremy “Paxton Quigley Had The Course”

Little Gifts

It’s been a fairly glum week so, but I’ve just found out that the third issue of Jessica Abel’s La Perdida came out this week, so that lifts my spirits a bit. Too bad I won’t be getting to a comics shop for a few days, though.

Secret Origins, Part VI

I’m not finished with the Best Show interviews just yet. Here’s part two of the Andy Earles interview.

Matthew Perpetua: Have you done much live-on-stage comedy before?

AE: Good! That’s perfect.

Philosophy Itself Is Nonsense, Nonsense!

In cooperation with Todd over at Dilettantism who is posting about Komar & Melamid’s Most Wanted/Least Wanted painting project today, I am offering MP3s from their Most Wanted/Least Wanted song project.

The premise of the project is that Komar & Melamid do extensive polling to find out what people want or do not want in art, and then create art that corresponds to the polling results highest and lowest scores.

You can download a word file containing the lyrics to the Least Wanted Song and an artist’s statement from Komar & Melamid’s composer partner Dave Soldier here.

“The Most Wanted Song”

“The Least Wanted Song”

Trust Me When I Say I Know The Pathway To Your Heart

Nirvana “Everybody Loves The Clown” – No, not Kurt Cobain’s Nirvana, but the British psychedelic band from the ’60s. I think that the most amazing thing about this song is that it so perfectly captures the grotesque happiness and unintentional creepiness of clowns. It’s just a little too happy sounding, you know? The adult voice in the right speaker sounds sort of crazed, and the child’s voice sounds slightly detached, as if s/he were singing under duress. It’s a very unique combination of joyous pop and the mildly unnerving and vaguely sinister.

The Clique “Superman” – Yes, it’s the song that R.E.M. covered on Lifes Rich Pageant. This is the original recording of the deranged-stalker pop classic.

Secret Origins, Part V

Here’s part one of the Andy Earles interview.

Matthew Perpetua: How did you start off with comedy and writing? Tom told me he had found you through your Cimmaron Weekend zines.

Andy Earles: Yes, that’s how Tom found me. He wrote me an e-mail about the Cimarron Weekend, I happened to be planning a trip to New York, so we just agreed to do something in person on the show. That was the first bit that I did for the show, the Giles Palermo character, back in May of 2001. I was really unhappy with how it went, and thought it would be a one-shot, but Tom e-mailed me a few months later about calling up and messing with the producer for “Bands On The Run” and Beastie from Soulcracker. That was summer of 2001, and it just became regular from then on.

MP: When I was talking to Tom, we were both trying to find a way to describe your comedy, and I think the best thing either of us could come up with was that you highlight this horror of mundane modern life. It’s all in the depressing details.

AE: My surviving family is very mundane. My mother, bless her heart, is the picture of mediocrity. My rent-paying job is in an office setting, that is where I am sitting right now.

MP: What sort of office job?

AE: IT. It’s glorified desk help, what I do. But its days are numbered. Writing has become, at least time wise, the equivalent of a part time job.

MP: Did the Very Depressed Office Worker come out of that experience?

AE: That comes from a prank call idea that Jeff Jensen and I had. Jeff came to Memphis to record much of Just Farr A Laugh in the late summer of 2001, and we found this business card for a motivational speaker/stand-up comedian on a bulletin board at the hipster coffee shop/bakery around the corner. It turned out that this guy was some kind of lower level Def Jam/Kings Of Comedy style comedian that had actually appeared on BET in the past.

I had this idea of trying to hire this guy to come to my office and speak to my employees while weaving that fucked-up work situation out of the whole thing. I couldn’t get him on the phone though, only his wife. Shortly after that, I decided to move the whole idea into the context of Tom’s show. I don’t remember what happened with that call, to the wife, but while Jeff and I were recording new material for the next CD a couple of months ago, I made the same call to a Job Harrassment Hotline, and it is pretty crazy. I can say things in these calls that I can’t on Tom’s show, like “I went out to my Hyundai Sante Fe because I had to go pick my daughter up from school, and one of my employee’s had taken black shoe polish and wrote ‘Butt Fuck’ across my windshield.”

MP: That’s pretty horrific. How did the person react?

AE: The guy just kept going, “Wow, you have a really bad situation there. You need to get professional help, it’s not going to get better, it’s just going to get worse.”

MP: So it was genuine sympathy, they didn’t question it.

AE: I added that the building maintenance super, or head janitor, keeps coming into the office trying to sell drugs to my employees. He walks into our work space saying, “Doses and weed, who wants doses and weed?” Creekwood Banks is his name. Here’s the kicker – Jeff calls this guy RIGHT back as one of my employees in a totally scary redneck voice. “I jus’ hit redial on my boss’ phone, this some kind of a help line er somthin’? Don’t believe a word that pussy says, he’s always up in our shit tellin’ us to get back to work. Like ‘get to work, bitch.’ Sure, I buy some shit from Creekwood Banks, but I don’t dose in the office er nuthin’, gotta get that shit somewhere.”

MP: So is this going to be on the next cd?

AE: Yeah. We also do these completely fucked up pranks to businesses, then call back as a mystery shopper explaining that “that call” was a mystery call to test the employee’s reaction. We have also, for better or worse, invited some religious humor into the game.

MP: Really? I thought that was one of your taboos.

AE: Well, it is, but the I loved the idea behind these calls so much that they have to go on. Jeff’s character is this suburban party yuppie who only takes his family to church on Easter and Christmas.

MP: So, how closely do you work with Jeff Jensen? How did you two meet up?

AE: He contacted me years ago through The Cimarron Weekend. I used to work at a record store here in town for five or so years. It is one of the “hip” stores in Memphis, one out of three. You get the idea. Anyway, our relationship started by way of the magazine and him coming into the store on one of his jaunts. Jeff does a lot of travelling. Jeff is from Lawrence, KS, he moved to NY about ten years ago.

MP: What does Jeff do?

AE: Jeff is independently wealthy, he does not have to work. I am the exact opposite of the spectrum. I am independently unstable and I have what amounts to three jobs. This place, writing, and hustling records on eBay.

MP: So what does Jeff do with his time?

AE: Jeff was the bass player in a band called Smack Dab, a sleeper Homestead Records band in the early ’90s. He is the lead singer of a current band called Closet Case. Jeff organized a citywide, 500 person scavenger hunt once.

MP: Which city?

AE: NYC. Maybe it was closer to 300-400 people.

MP: Actually, you know, I think I remember hearing about this. When did he do that?

AE: ’98 or ’99.

MP: Yeah, I think that’s probably what I remember. I was in school in the city then, and I remember hearing people talk about it.

When did you start the Cimmaron Weekend?

AE: ’97. It was a staple job at first, no cover price. I brought on my close friend Dave Dunlap and we become co-editors/owners and the CW became a real publication with a cover price and such in early ’99. We folded it a few months ago, officially. Dave now lives in DC, writing for the City Paper and it is tough to do a publication long distance. It’s easier to do comedy that way.

Each of the issues were equally broken out into six sections. Meaning, Dave and I both had our own editorial, feature, and review section. We were writing about music and whatever pop-cultural nonsense we were into at the time.

MP: Did a lot of the success of the zine came from word of mouth? What was your distribution like?

AE: We had pretty good distro through Revolver and Tower, we never sold over 1,000 of any issue but we might have made our money back, maybe. I’m going to start my own journal, a perfect bound 6″ by 9″ or something.

MP: You mean, like a literary journal sort of thing?

AE: It might look like that, but it will be whatever I feel like writing about, and there will be reviews.

MP: Okay, so it will be like an ‘upscale’ zine, I guess?

AE: Yeah, exactly.

MP: Where did the Samson bit come from? That one is so great, this whole man’s depressing life compressed into six minutes on an answering machine.

AE: Another one from a ditched prank call. We called a restaurant trying to get the waitress to act like she knew the character, because he was on a first date and had lied to the girl, saying that this place was his favorite eatery. The only thing that carried over to Tom’s show was what Samson was wearing.

MP: There are tons of folks like Samson out there. I wish I could be as happy as them. I love that bit where he says that one of his interests are giant pretzels, especially the honey-mustard kind.

AE: Yeah, you make fun, but…..you are the one that thinks too much, you are the unhappy one.

MP: Do you intend for that sort of subtext to be in your comedy?

AE: No, it’s just the things that I think are good fertile ground for comedy.

MP: It’s all over your comedy, too.

AE: Right, well, i

t’s a style that came from my upbringing, I guess.

MP: What was your upbringing like?

AE: Boring and lower-middle class. We were ok until I was 15, then my father had a stroke and couldn’t work. My parents split, I lived with my Mom and we were pretty poor. I mean, we didn’t starve. We ate well.

MP: Right. But definitely lower-middle class.

AE: Yeah. Two-bedroom, post-war architecture apartment, sliding windows. I took a lot of drugs, I drank a lot, I hoarded a lot of music, I watched a lot of cable, I read a lot.

MP: What kind of music were you into?

AE: Before 14? Classic rock. I was a huge Led Zep fan. 14-16, I was into college rock bordering on loud indie rock. I was really into R.E.M., Dinosaur Jr., and Sonic Youth. 16 – 19, I was into much more indie and obscure stuff. Touch and Go, AmRep stuff, and noise and free jazz. I’m into pop music more than any other type of music.

MP: By pop, you mean?

AE: Any type of pop. I’m a big pop person, and 60’s folk rock.

MP: I was just wondering if you were talking like an ILM born-again Top 40 type of person. “Indie Sux now, Justin Timberlake is the real art now” kind of stuff.

AE: No, I am not like that. That is simply reactionary. I hate that fake-ass outlook.

MP: I enjoy a lot of popular Top 40 pop stuff, but I agree that is a completely reactionary attitude. It’s all over the place now. It’s insidious.

FailedPilot: Yeah. So, I went through about every phase you can imagine. Every record geek phase, that is.

Secret Origins, Part IV

Here’s the second part of the Jon Wurster interview.

MP: What inspired you to start the Stereolaffs label and release Rock Rot And Rule? That seemed to open a lot of doors for you.

JW: We just made tapes of Rock Rot and Rule for bands to listen to in their vans. People started to find out about it and we just thought we should put it out before somebody else did. It did open a lot of doors. It’s crazy.

MP: A lot of the comedy that you do is about music, and music culture, in a way that’s a lot more specific than what is common in pop culture.

JW: Yeah, I don’t really know about much else!

MP: How long have you been involved in music?

JW: I started playing drums at age ten, so about twenty-some years. Man, that’s too long.

MP: So you’ve been in and out of bands since a teen, I guess?

JW: Yeah, my first band was called Hair Club For Men in the very early ’80s. I just saw the bass player last week for the first time since high school.

MP: A lot of your characters tend to follow similar arcs, a lot of them starting off relatively weird but benign…

JW: Yeah, they all want to kill Tom at the end.

MP: You’ve sort of mastered that switch – that moment when it all goes haywire.

JW: Yeah, that to me is funny. Tom and I have vague outline for a movie called “Unhinged” about a guy who is that to a tee. I don’t think it comes from me really. I mean, I have moments where I want to go nutzo but I never do. Maybe this is a way for me to do that.

MP: A lot of the best bits usually have a good vs. evil thing happening in them.

JW: Yeah, I’m usually the evil one, huh?

MP: The theory that I had about it is that you and Tom are both pretty decent guys, and the comedy seems to be about examining bad ethics and finding humor in absurdly bad people.

JW: That’s exactly what it is – if you ask me. Can we use that?

MP: Sure. I was going to say something to that effect in the article.

JW: Just don’t put that I hate kids, ok?

MP: No, I won’t put that in the article. Anyway, not all of the characters are violent and crazy – some of them are just scam artists and creeps

JW: Like the President?

MP: Yes, like the President. Oh man, I’ve got to ask – was that Bush song that Zachary sings written by you or Tom? That thing is genius. “H is for forgotten memories.”

JW: Man, I’m trying to rememeber. I think that was collaborative. I will say 60/40 in my favor.

MP: That song is so creepy now, a few years after the 2000 election debacle. It’s too prescient for its own good.

JW: We gotta get NRBQ to record it.

MP: You should get NRBQ to do a 7″ “The Bush Song” b/w “Freedom Bombs”

JW: I like it!

MP: Actually, “Freedom Bombs” is probably a better a-side.

JW: Yeah, it’s what America wants to hear.

MP: What characters are you most proud of?

JW: Um…I think Clontle is up there. Brimstead was good but I lost interest in it. I’m not sure if it’s funny anymore. I think Corey Harris from Mother 13 is good. Barry Dworkin. One of my favorites is one we can’t find. I called in as a guy leaving the most mundane message about ball bearings on a guy’s machine. I thought that was a top 10. I think Philly Boy Roy and Hot Rockin’ Ronny might be my best.

MP I don’t think I’ve heard the ball bearings thing. Are there any that you don’t think turned out very well, or could’ve been better?

JW: Yeah, I thought the Batter Butler was better than it was when I listened to it last week to see if it was worth putting on the next cd. We had a guy saying he was Peter Tork call in the middle of something (can’t remember what it was) and it just ruined it. It might have been the second Barry Dworkin call. Mike Jackyl was one that didn’t sound as funny as I recall it being. Augie Richards, that’s a perfect example of why I should listen to the first call before reprising a role. The voices aren’t at all similar.

MP: What calls are you considering for the next cd set?

JW: It’s still up in the air. I’ve been editing potential things down these last few weeks. One I think we both like is the Clash call. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to have that on there now -even if it was recorded 9 or so months before Joe Strummer’s death. I am a massive Clash fan and I really think he would have found that funny. I think Mother 13 will be on there and maybe Jarrett the weight-loss kid. It’ll be another double cd.

MP: I like that Clash call a lot too. I’m not sure about how appropriate it is. It’s not exactly inappropriate.

JW: Yeah, if only there was a way of letting people know when it was done and in what spirit.

MP: It seems kinda tricky, and it might get in the way of some people’s enjoyment of it. It might just bum some people out.

JW: I think my goal would be to put out the Hot Rockin’ Ronny and Philly Boy Roy box sets too. It’s always a plus for the calls to be shorter. It’s hard getting these things down below 25 minutes. I’ve got Barry Dworkin down to about 22 minutes and The Clash down to about 25.

MP: Wow. You edited a lot out of Dworkin. How much did you edit out of the Chain Fights, Beer Busts, and Service With A Grin calls?

JW: A fair amount. I took several calls out of the Gorch. They were funny at first but then they meandered. Radio Hut probably had about 10 minutes trimmed.

MP: Radio Hut is another big favorite of mine. It’s a slow burner. Very scary.

JW: Radio Hut is maybe my favorite too. But that’s the one nobody ever comments on.

MP: Radio Hut didn’t hit me right away. That one holds up to repeated listenings so well.

JW: “You matured.” That’s a line Jim from Chunk always says.

MP: There are jokes in that one that I didn’t even notice til the 5th or 6th listening. There’s that one part where you quietly mutter “…it’s got something called Fudge. I don’t know what that is.” I didn’t even notice it til my friend pointed it out to me. It has become an in-joke reference for me and a couple of my friends.

JW: That to me is what it’s all about. That is the ultimate compliment. That’s why I
don’t really go for stand-up. I love things that you can listen to over and over and find new things with each listen.

MP: What is it that appeals to you about the Radio Hut skit?

JW: Just how low-key the guy is. He’s an asshole but he’s not yelling.

MP: I think that’s exactly it. He’s the scariest psycho you’ve done exactly because of how quiet and intense he is.

JW: Let me say that I hope I’m not coming off right now as one of those “..and wasn’t it great when I did this?” kind of guys.

MP: Oh, no.

JW: Cool.

MP: I was hoping that I wasn’t coming off like that old Chris Farley character, “Remember when you did The Gorch? That was cooooool!”

Secret Origins, Part III

Here’s part two of the Tom Scharpling interview. I highly recommend checking out the archive of last night’s show, which was an elaborate April Fool’s Day joke in which Tom did the entire three hour show as a deadpan parody of a conservative talk radio program. It’s a non-stop longform sarcastic joke, with incredible attention to detail and nuance. It is played so dry that you just can’t blame the poor earnest suckers who call in to challenge “Thomas Sharp” for getting so angry at him. It’s a pretty amazing episode, definitely one of the most remarkable and convincing skits that Scharpling has pulled off to date.

MP: Who else besides yourself, Jon, and Andy contribute to the Best Show?

Secret Origins, Part II

Here’s the first part of the Jon Wurster interview. Enjoy!

Matthew Perpetua: How did you and Tom first meet?

JW: I don’t know. I like doing that stuff too. It’s funny in that we have, in a way, the best possible platform for doing comedy. For us, anyway. Neither of us has to be seen by anybody – I think we’re both a little shy- and we get to do exactly what we want with no guidelines. And people seem to find out about it.

Secret Origins

I’m currently working on putting together a feature article about The Best Show On WMFU, and so I’m going to be posting some excerpts from the interviews that I conducted with Tom Scharpling, Jon Wurster, and Andrew Earles over the course of the week. The article is being geared towards an audience who probably aren’t familiar with the show, but a lot of the questions that I asked in the interviews are mainly of interest to hardcore Best Show fans. I’d like for that sort of information to be available to those who would be interested.

I’m going to start at the beginning, with Tom Scharpling telling the story of how the Best Show started out.

Matthew Perpetua: How did the show start?

Tom Scharpling: I got involved with WFMU back in ’94 when I first started doing a show, and it was a straight music show at that point.

MP Late at night?

TS Yeah, everyone at the station kinda does the overnight first, so I did an overnight, and then I worked my way up to 11-2 AM, then I got to an 8-11 PM show, but it was still music. Then I starting talking a little more, and got comfortable with that. I was always kinda comfortable talking, but I started spreading the music out a little bit and talking about stuff and not feeling like I had to be chained to the music as much.

MP At that point, what were you talking about?

TS Oh, just kinda taking calls and random stuff, sorta like the more unstructured parts of the show now.

MP Open call Tuesday?

TS Yeah, stuff like that. I guess it would all dovetail at “Rock, Rot, and Rule.” I was friends with Jon Wurster of Superchunk. I was always friends with the band, I was friends with them before he was in the band. I remember meeting him at the first show they did in this area and we kinda hit it off. We were interested in similar things. And then we just decided to do something on the radio which would be this kinda fake show, a fake guest that was kinda based on something Oprah Winfrey said when she was getting sued by the cattle industry in 1997. When she won her case, she said “freedom doesn’t only rule, freedom rocks.” And it became this thing, rule and rock, and we started going back and forth on the phone, just goofing around. It’s the weirdest friendship in a way, because he’s got to be my best friend, and I’m here and he’s in North Carolina. I don’t think I ever really call him anymore, the conversations just start. We almost just go through twenty minutes of just running stuff when either one calls the other one. I’ll call him as a character, and that’ll often turn into something.

MP I’m curious what your characters are like, because you always play the straight man on the show.

TS That’s a funny thing because a lot of the time, with Jon Wurster, it’s a 50/50 thing. The characters half the time start with me starting them and doing them for him, and then he’ll become the character when it is time for the show. And we’ll take turns on who is the character on the calls. You’ve just got to keep it open for the ideas, the ideas are the most important part of it. You can tell when something’s building towards something that’s going to work.

So, with “Rock, Rot, and Rule,” we were just kicking this guy around, this rock critic. And we thought, “let’s just do it on the show,” and we did it on the show. Before I did it on the show, a couple people who I told what we were doing to do were just like “that’s not gonna work, that’s funny for two minutes, that’s going to be a disaster.” But then we started getting real calls, which we never could have counted on in a million years, getting really angry. We never could have counted on getting that kind of anger out of the audience. It was just like the biggest high ever, I just remember calling Jon as soon as the show was over, and it was like being on crack or something. It’s like a dream come true to just trick people. I don’t know about you, but all the stuff I like, that seems to be a component of it. Whether it’s like Andy Kaufman or Bob & Ray, you know, anything that plays with reality like that. Being able to fool a lot of people in one fell swoop, it was just the greatest feeling ever.

We did it one more time, we did another one, this conventions thing. It was called “Conventions Inc.”, about this guy who puts together conventions. We’re going to put it out soon, we’re going to do these limited edition cd-r things on the website. We’re doing a new Stereolaffs website, it’s going to be completely retooled. It’ll be new and improved and will actually make sense to people as opposed to the last site which made sense to about 14 people who were hooked on it and terrifying obsessed with this world we created.

Then I had a bunch of stuff going on in my life when I quit the station, and I wanted to get my career going a little bit. I had a retail job, and I was writing as a second job at night. I would go home from running this music store to writing at night knowing that I was trying to pave a way for the future. I was writing screenplays, I’ve written screenplays with a couple of other people, but nothing’s been made yet. We had one thing optioned a few times, it was just optioned again a few weeks ago. We got hired to write a studio job, and that crashed and burned.

MP How did you get into comedy writing?

TS It was just kinda like something that, I felt it was something I was meant to do. It’s like, I found this stuff I did when I was six, and it was just insane how the only difference is now, my penmanship is better. It’s the same path, it’s the path I was always on. I didn’t realize, but it’s the path I’m on. It’s kinda nice to be on the path that I guess you were kinda meant to be on.

I never thought I’d come back to WFMU, you know, I thought “I’m not gonna come back and do records,” it just wasn’t the most interesting thing to me, to come back and play records and talk a little bit. It was the fall of 2000 when the show started. One of the DJs said to me, “when are you gonna come back, when come back”, and I said that I didn’t know, and he said “you should just do the show you wanna do.” And that made sense all of a sudden. I was at the UCB Theatre, and just seeing them do their thing the way they want, their theatre was the way they wanted it to be. And I just thought, why can’t I just do a radio show that’s on my terms, and it’s the show that I want to show up and do every week? And then I ran it by Brian Turner, who is a great guy, the program director, and he got what it was going to be. It was like, we’re going to do “Rock, Rot And Rule” every night, that was the goal. That cd is the show now, with music there to give a breather for 15 minutes. We started the show, and Jon was completely on board, and by that point the cd had been released and it made the rounds, and a lot of people liked it.

Wicker Basket For Bread

The Malkmus media watch continues!

In the new issue of SPIN, there is a feature article in which ten celebrities are asked to create an online personal ad for Nerve.com just to see what kind of responses the ads would get. Stephen Malkmus was one of the celebrities who participated in this experiment, and here is his ad, along with a few responses.

Musician
Portland, Oregon

Profile nickname: stevie_stevie
age: 35
I am interested in: dating
Last great book I read: Independent People by Haldor Laxness
Favorite on-screen sex scene: Anything in Todd Solondz’s Happiness
Celebrity I most resemble: Richard Ashcroft
Best (or worst) lie I ever told: “You’re so normal.”
Music that puts me in th

e mood: “TV Party,” Black Flag
I can’t live without: Hormones, ice cream, wicker basket for bread, tonic water, stereo
In my bedroom you’ll find: bed, dresser, computer, homework
Why you should get to know me: I’ve got so much to give you
Who I’m looking for: The best of the rest

—-

To: stevie_stevie
From: chairmanmeowww
I Googled Richard Ashcroft and saw what he looked like. You don’t look like him at al. He seems like a cheeseball.

To: stevie_stevie
From: mediumbrow
Hot damn! I like your adorable haircut! But I’m a little nervous about your occupation. Most people who say they’re musicians actually work at Kinko’s and live in someone’s basement.

To: stevie_stevie
From: intotheswim
I wanted to tell you that you are the first person I have seen that had Happiness as their favorite sex scene! P.S.: Is that Steven with a “V” or Stephen with a “P-H”? I’m wary of the “V” kind. Please advise.

Malkmus Says: Props to these ladies for even responding at all. Sure, I’d date you all, but Elimidate style, so I can do it all in one night and on national TV. You can tell a lot about a person by how they act on national TV.

More Hail To The Thief Notes

* Is Thom Yorke chanting “it should be Reagan” on “The Gloaming”? If he isn’t, what the hell is he saying?

* I am genuinely puzzled by the inclusion of “I Will”. It’s such a dull neither-here-nor-there kind of song, and I can’t see what this song adds to the record. They rejected “Lift” and “Big Ideas” and “Big Boots” to revive this dud? Did they really feel that the album really needed one more lulling quiet song? I don’t get it. I’m blaming Ed O’Brien for this. I’m blaming all of the mediocre parts of this album on him. He’s been lobbying for this since 1997, after all.

Silence Is A Rhythm Too!

More MP3s for you:

“Bearings” – The “lost” Best Show skit! Tom takes a call from someone who thinks that they are a leaving a message on a co-worker’s answering machine.

James Brown “Cottage For Sale”

The Moving Sidewalks “I Want To Hold Your Hand”

The Slits “In The Beginning There Was Rhythm” – for Joe.

Can “Oh Yeah” – I wish that contemporary “jam bands” sounded more like this and less like Smooth Jazz Lite FM. I was listening to this late last night, and it never occured to me just how essential the keyboards are to this song. It’s the least obvious thing about the arrangement, particularly given the virtuoso performances by Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit on guitar and drums, but just try to imagine the song without Irmin Schmidt’s drones. It’s that extra bit that puts the song over the top, I think.

We Will Probably Crumble

Hail To The Thief is on Soulseek now. It’s way too early for me to say much about the record, but these are my early impressions:

1) Even though I knew the songs before hearing the recorded versions, I can’t help but feel vaguely let down by the more straight ahead “rocking out” parts of “2+2=5” and “Go To Sleep”. That said, they’re okay songs. I like the intro part of “2+2=5” quite a bit.

2) Though I’ve only heard it twice as of this writing, I’m pretty sure that “Backdrifts” is one of the best things Radiohead have ever recorded. I’m in awe of that song. I felt this great rush of euphoria hearing it for the first time, if just because it sounded so much like a song I think I’ve always wished I could listen to, but hadn’t found.

God Don’t Want No Part Time Soldiers

Since I’ve mentioned Radiohead, I may as well go ahead and scare off the rest of the snob audience by bringing up the fact that I saw Zwan on Friday night. I was very impressed, they were a lot tighter and had a lot more stage presence than I was anticipating. I’ve been meaning to see Billy Corgan play live for a decade now, so it was good to finally please the teenager inside of me. I’ve heard enough live recordings of the man playing on good and bad nights to be fairly confident that this was probably a pretty good night for the band.

The highlights of the show defied my expectations – I’d been expecting to be bored by the longer jammy songs, but as it turned out, “Jesus, I/God’s Gonna Set This World On Fire”, “Mary Star of the Sea”, and “Spilled Milk” (or as I like to call it, “X.Y.2”) stood out as the most consistently engaging songs of the night. The “God’s Gonna Set This World On Fire” section of “Jesus, I” was fabulous, and sounded sort of like The Smashing Pumpkins born again as a sinister psychedelic gospel outfit. I was also surprised by the live versions of “Desire” and “Of A Broken Heart”, which both benefited greatly from starker arrangements and a decreased schmaltz factor.

Similarly, Jimmy Chamberlain’s drumming was a revelation. I had grown so used to hearing his performances buried under a wall of suffocating treble in his studio recordings with Corgan that hearing/feeling his drumming in a live setting made me understand what so many people have been raving about for years. The guy is powerful – he’s easily one of the hardest-hitting drummers that I’ve seen live.

I’m not so sure that the talents of Dave Pajo are being fully utilized in Zwan. It seemed to me that Pajo was mostly playing lead and effects parts while he played guitar, and he only switched to keyboard for a couple of songs. I don’t know what else the guy could do given the material, but I can’t help but feel that Corgan is missing an opportunity to capitalize on the fact that this guy is one of his sidemen. I don’t get that impression regarding Matt Sweeney or Paz Lenchantin’s roles in the band – they both play their supporting parts well, supply appealing backing vocals, and have a reasonable degree of second-banana charisma.

Here’s the setlist, for those who may be interested.

Jesus, I / God’s Gonna Set This World On Fire / Endless Summer / For Your Love / Lyric / El Sol / Honestly / Desire / Ride A Black Swan / Mary Star Of The Sea / Heartsong / Of A Broken Heart / Declarations of Faith / Settle Down // A New Poetry /// Spilled Milk

Unfortunately for me, “Baby Let’s Rock” was not performed, which probably would have been a lot more disappointing for me if I hadn’t already known that the likelihood of it being played was so low.

The Conspiracy Of Silence Ought To Revolutionize My Thought

Four songs for you. Have a nice weekend.

Magazine “The Light Pours Out Of Me” – Jack Fear, wrote this about the song on Barbelith: “Best bass hook ever: one note, over and over, with the accents moving around in incredibly driving manner—and a guitar line that reinvents Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part II” as something deeply sinister. It’s a great song—a masterpiece of tension and release… Pete Shelley has a co-writing credit on the tune. The great Buzzcocks song that never was, then.

The Slits “Love Und Romance”

Yoko Ono “Mind Train”

Echoboy “Telstar Recovery”

Something To Look Forward To

From Fantagraphics:

We’re pleased to be able to report that United Artists has signed a first-look deal with GHOST WORLD production company Mr. Mudd for future films the company develops, and the first flick on the slate will reunite EIGHTBALL creator DANIEL CLOWES and GHOST WORLD director TERRY ZWIGOFF. Ghost World producer and actor JOHN MALKOVICH will star in ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, inspired by the acclaimed Clowes short story from Eightball #7. United Artists will release the film domestically, with Miramax Films co-financing the picture and handling foreign distribution. The black comedy takes a satirical look at the modern art world with the story of a young man who goes to art school with the intention of becoming the Greatest Artist in the World. Contrary to some inexplicable Hollywood reports, the protagonist is not a cop and Drew Barrymore is not attached to the film. Clowes is currently polishing the screenplay and with any luck, the movie will begin filming in 2003.

Malkmus In Low SAT Score Shocker!

Here’s another amusing Malkmus interview. This time, it’s SM being interviewed by Playboy while preparing a batch of brownies.

The best part:

PB: Do you bristle at your reputation for being one of the smartest people in music?

SM: I feel like a politician. You can’t be that smart in order to win. Like George Bush. If you’re too clever, it’s bad. For Hollywood movie stars it’s true, too. The ones that are really clever, they’re never going to be like Julia Roberts, or J.Lo or Ben Affleck. People don’t want to support a complete hotshot know-it-all.

(thank you Tina)

Now You Know I’m Ready, Can’t You See I’m Ready?

Roooooooyaaaaaaalllllll Truuuuuuuux. I’ve been listening to Royal Trux constantly since Friday night. On one hand, I keep thinking “why haven’t I been listening to Royal Trux for all of this time?”, and on the other, I’m glad that I saved it til now. I’m ready for Royal Trux now. I needed a new body of work to obsess over, a new musical language to decipher. It’s exciting; I still feel like I’m figuring them out, which is always a fun feeling for me.

This morning “Yo Se!” clicked for me in a big way, which at least one person who may or may not be reading this blog might be very happy about, since she put it on so many tapes for me a few years ago. I never disliked the song, but I think in retrospect, I definitely needed more context for it than I had at the time.

Putting Up A Fight

R.E.M. weighs in on the war with “The Final Straw”. It’s certainly not their best work, but it is a reasonably good old-school folk protest song. If the Zack de la Rocha/DJ Shadow song captures the righteous rage of the opposition to the war and the Bush administration, this R.E.M. song articulates the empathy and humanity that informs that rage.

Personal Whiney Stuff

I just can’t catch a break lately. Stomach flu-like sickness late last week, a severe head cold now. I’m not a healthy boy. There’s too much fluid in my head, it’s interfering with basic thought processes, all of my thoughts feel sluggish and awkward.

In a related story, I’ve probably imbibed more Gatorade in the past seven days than I have cumulatively in my entire lifetime. Something that I’ve discovered: the pastel-colored Gatorade varieties tend to have a vaguely soapy flavor.

Also: Hail To The Thief is a very lame title for an album. I’m not too crazy about “The Gloaming” either. In my mind, that’s about one step away from naming a song “Goblinquest”.

Hey Hey My My

Excellent quote from Royal Trux’s Jennifer Herrema, taken from this interview:

As far as rock n roll goes, the way I think of it, it could never die. It’s not possible. Cos all rock n roll has ever been is just like raping and pillaging and stealing from other sources and turning it inside out and making it your own. Everyone says everything has already been done. But I’m talking to you on the phone right now, and this conversation has never been put into a song. As far as rock n roll being dead, no, I don’t see that happening.

I just don’t want to talk to anyone who would disagree with her about this, not just about rock n roll, but about all kinds of art. I don’t have time for those who would project their own lack of ideas, playfulness, or creativity on the rest of the world.

In Many Rich Directions

I’m very impressed by the review of Pig Lib in this week’s Village Voice. Not only is it one of the best written reviews I’ve read in the frequently obnoxious Village Voice music section, but it’s also one of the most intelligent and well-observed reviews I’ve ever read about Malkmus’s work. Way to go, Joe Gross. I’m glad someone is willing to write about Malkmus’s discography without dismissing any of his past work, particularly his more recent material. I’m also pleased that Gross plays up the emotional aspects of Pig Lib, along with the rest of SM’s catalog, because I think that’s something most people either ignore or write off.

(thanks Ray!)

Also: There are new interviews with Malkmus on Pitchfork and Nerve’s website.

Way-Down-In-The-Delta

I’ve been trying to find a more clever way of saying this, but since I haven’t, and Todd thought of the same thing, I’ll just put it as bluntly as I possibly can: The Black Keys are Blueshammer. I haven’t seen pictures of them, but I’m pretty sure they probably resemble Sean William Scott too. Still, I can enjoy their cover of “She Said, She Said” for the novelty factor, but that’s not much of a recommendation.

Voice Of A Riot

Zack de la Rocha and DJ Shadow have released a new song called “March Of Death” which could possibly be the first truly successful pop song written by an established artist about post 9/11 politics. The lyrics are a step up from what de le Rocha was writing in Rage Against The Machine, and he delivers them with the appropriate level of toxic anger. However, the main appeal of the song for me is DJ Shadow’s backing track, which I think is the finest thing he’s turned out in quite a while. It’s a return to his pre-1995 one-man-Bomb Squad sound, and if there’s ever been an appropriate song/time to update the old PE sound, this is it. It sounds brutal and unruly, I’m very excited by the possibility that this song will likely be playlisted by Clearchannel rock stations all over the US on the strength of de la Rocha’s fanbase. I never particularly liked Rage Against The Machine, but I can definitely support this.

Is That A Question? Is That A Fucking Question?

For Todd and Joe:

Royal Trux “The Banana Question”

Royal Trux “Sunshine & Grease”

Royal Trux “Back To School”

Royal Trux “Juicy Juicy Juice”

Royal Trux “Dirty Headline”

Royal Trux “Blue Is The Frequency”

Royal Trux “You’re Gonna Lose”

A part of the reason why I’m posting these Royal Trux songs is in reaction to The Kills. I like The Kills just fine, they’ve got about five very good tunes, but it is almost impossible for me to hear them without a little voice in my mind chanting “Trux Lite! Trux Lite!” That’s sort of unfair, I know – The Kills actually sound a lot more like a bizarre hybrid of late 80s LA pop metal and late period Velvet Underground, and the Trux resemblence is fairly superficial. The Trux have an originality of sound and persona that I don’t think anyone could ever ape, so it would be sort of miraculous if there ever were actual Royal Trux soundalike bands out there.

Shocking And Awing

There’s some new Get Yur War On strips on MFFTIU. Bless David Rees. We’re all lucky to have him.

Also: there’s a new TV Go Home, featuring a particularly brilliant program titled ‘The Third World War In Sepia’. Plus: Nathan “Cunt” Barley. (Thank you Jack.)

I’ve been avoiding writing about current events here and on Barbelith. It comes up in regular conversation quite enough, and it is very exhausting. I don’t know what to say anymore. The war is bad enough, but the ridiculousness of the propaganda in virtually all of the mainstream media is depressing me beyond all belief. I can’t believe this is really happening. It’s like the Bush administration and all of their complicit pals have been working overtime for the past four years to make some kind of dreary sci-fi dystopian future a reality within the next decade. I don’t want to live in a world in which Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan is eerily prophetic, you know? I’m barely holding it together watching ‘news’ coverage of the war on tv which closely resembles my brother’s Playstation games and reading about people seriously suggesting that anti-war celebrities be blacklisted in the New York Post.

Anyway, I’m going to try to go back into my cocoon of pop culture. I hope that you understand and do not think less of me.

We’re All Disgusting

Interesting bit of Blur information from a recent Blur concert review written by a fan:

When I asked Damon to play ‘My White Noise’ I was given the reply “We cant, Phil Daniels isn’t here” I didn’t argue, just remained baffled, had I said ‘Parklife’? “We were gonna call that song something like ‘Darklife’ but didn’t coz people would’ve attacked us”

Later on in the pub I found out that Phil Daniels does the voice for ‘My White Noise’, so for those few of us who have the rare version amongst us (with Damon’s vocals), hang on to it!

You can download the Damon Albarn-on-vocals version of “My White Noise” right here.

This Is Not A Good Day.

I feel sick, and I’m extremely depressed because of the war. I don’t really have much to say here today, maybe later, I don’t know. I’m sorry this blog has been so dull this week, my heart just hasn’t been in it the past several days. I’m sure you understand.

Yesterday was a fine day, though – I went down to WFMU and interviewed Tom Scharpling for an article about the Best Show that I’m putting together, and that went very well. I also bought the new issue of New X-Men which was quite good, and somewhat surprising. The story sort of zigged when I thought it was going to zag, you know what I mean? I also picked up the new David Rees comic, My New Filing Technique Is Unstoppable In: “Horse Races”, which is pretty good so far, I’ve only read about ten pages into it. It’s very funny, and manages to be even weirder than the first Filing Technique comic. I love Rees’ Get Yur War On strips, but the Filing Technique comics are a lot closer to my heart.

I picked up a copy of Pig Lib yesterday too, the limited-edition version with the bonus EP. Be careful – some stores aren’t carrying that version. If it’s in a plastic jewelbox, it is not the special edition, and you really ought to get the special edition because it’s worth going out of your way just to get it so that you can hear the studio version of “Old Jerry”. It’s very melancholy and beautiful, and better than half of the songs on the proper album. I really wish that Malkmus had put that song on the record, I would have preferred it to “Dark Wave” or “Animal Midnight”, but then I can understand why he didn’t, because it would’ve been one more slow jammy number and it might’ve made the album a little too same-y sounding.

I would offer an MP3 of “Old Jerry”, but I do want to encourage people to actually buy this record, and most people already have the full album proper.

The Interactive Bloggy

I’m not feeling very inspired to write bloggy things today, but I do have a bunch of notes that I scribbled down on the train while listening to the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Kills albums, so I’ll try to write them into a post sometime later on today or tomorrow morning. I’m just not feeling it right now.

I’m curious about what some of you regular readers thought of the Andy Earles/Failed Pilot comedy MP3s that I posted a couple weeks ago. Did any of you download them? What did you think of them? The MP3s are still there, if you haven’t tried them yet.

I Want To Believe That I’ve Got The Key In Me

I’ll write more about these songs a little later. If you can only download one, I strongly recommend the Graham Coxon number.

Graham Coxon “Locked Doors”

The Kills “Kissy Kissy”

The New Pornographers “Chump Change”

The Aislers Set “Catherine Says”

Close Calls With Brick Walls

Well, god bless the Dixie Chicks, who prove that even though the majority of their audience are jingoistic right wing fuckheads, they aren’t afraid to speak their minds and piss them off. That takes a lot of guts, especially when you read that article and realize that there are actually people in their audience who are so reactionary that they’re actually going to try to boycott them.

Also linked from that article is a news item about Andrew WK titling his next album Blow Your Bone. That’s funny enough, but the best part is that Andrew insists that it’s not sexual, but about blowing up a chicken (or cow) bone with dynamite. If you take him at his word, I do believe that this may be the most bizarre unintended double-entendre of all time. Of course, there’s a song slated to appear on the album called “I Am Totally Stupid,” so maybe he’s hoping people will just take his word for it.

(thanks to ILM for the tip-off)

Layin’ On The Syrup Thick

Can someone please tell me why it seems that no one can write an intelligent, clever protest song these days? When Sleater-Kinney’s hamfisted “Combat Rock” is the best post-9/11 protest song currently making the rounds, it’s a rather depressing commentary on the state of political pop music. Surely someone out there can write something witty and lacking in both preciousness and bombast, right?

The Beastie Boys have posted a new anti-war song on their website, but jeezy creezy, it’s AWFUL. I’ve never thought of them as being brilliant lyricists, but they are certainly capable of something a little better than this doggeral. It’s almost not worth it to criticize it too much – it’s just too trite to take seriously. As Kenan says, they’ve gone right past mediocrity to actively sucking. Can someone please tap them on the shoulder and tell them to knock it off with the annoying old school homages? It was getting really obnoxious on half of Hello Nasty, but this new song is just grating and amateurish.

Across The Bloggyverse

Let’s face it, I’m very boring today. What are all the other bloggy kids up to?

* Flyboy and Big Sunny D have written interesting things about Adaptation.

* The Secret Origin of Jody Beth Rosen!

* Daniel Frank indulges in some nitpicking about Bringin’ Down The House, which he hated. I can’t believe he actually paid to see it! I probably wouldn’t even watch the thing on tv for free on a boring day.

* Jack Fear has posted an article that he wrote about the political songwriting of Bruce Cockburn which was originally intended for the currently-on-hiatus Barbelith Webzine. It’s very interesting, I’ve never heard Cockburn, but I’m very eager to now.

Dance, Oh Sons And Daughters

Blur “All Your Life” – This has always been one of my favorite Blur songs, it’s an outtake from the Blur album and appears as a b-side on one of the “Beetlebum” singles. As wonderful as it is, I completely understand why it didn’t make the album – it’s maybe a little too similar to “On Your Own”, and the melody on the verses was perhaps a little too close to David Bowie’s “Oh! You Pretty Things” for Blur’s legal department’s comfort.

Brian Jonestown Massacre “Cold To The Touch”

Frank Black with They Might Be Giants “Ten Percenter” (live)

We Can Find New Ways Of Living

Matador Records co-founder Gerard Cosloy was kind enough to answer a question that I asked him over on ILM about their decision to initially sell Interpol’s debut album with an artificially lower list price, which has been a strategy that some other labels have been trying lately to introduce new artists. This is precisely what I asked him: Out of curiosity, would you consider trying the ‘reduced list price’ trick again? How much of that album’s success at retail do you chalk up to the low introduction price?

This is Gerard’s response:

re: reduced list price for Interpol.

Hard for us to determine for sure just how much or how little this had to do with the album’s success at retail. The cheap price made it easier for people to check out the band and certainly made it easier for stores to take a bigger initial quantity of the album than they might’ve otherwise. On the other hand, were it not for other things happening in concert with this cheap price campaign (ie. strong press, well received gigs, lotsa college play, good word of mouth in advance of the album, good reactions to the pre-album EP, etc.) the reduced list might’ve been meaningless. We did this once before with another band’s debut album and struggled to sell a couple of thousand.

Since ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’ went up to full price in January, the sales have actually increased. Would we have seen similarly strong sales had the album gone out with a standard price last year? We’ll never know.

I’m very curious about what folks from other record labels trying this tactic would respond to the same question, particularly the major labels. For example, RCA tried this with The Strokes album, and Virgin did the same with the N.E.R.D. record. Was it entirely necessary, considering the fact that MTV et al embraced those artists rather quickly, especially in the case of N.E.R.D. who were already technically superstars in the industry? Also, I wonder about how much of a budget deficit this strategy creates, since in addition to the small fortune being spent on advertising and store shelfspace, they’re probably not making any money off the record itself til they increase the list price and even then it may take longer than usual to break even, much less make a profit. This business model seems like it could screw the artist over even worse than the average record contract, even if the idea of decreasing list prices is a very appealing one. It’s such a gamble.