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.

In The Next World War…

You know, I think Badger has an interesting point here:

So when is Radiohead going to raise their head? I just remembered with all of this anti-war stuff spewed by Massive Attack and Blur comes with the release of new albums. Radiohead’s album will be due this summer. They are missing their chance to declare the impending war immoral just because their release date is too late.

To Hear My Words, And They’re Diamond Sharp

Malkmus’ EW dis frenzy has landed him in the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column! (Thanks Todd!)

Destroy Your Record Collection, It’s For Your Own Protection

The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower “Attached To The Hip”

Black Box Recorder “The School Song” – Oh my God! It’s like Grant Morrison’s Emma Frost with a disco beat!

Beach Boys “Til I Die” (extended alternate version)

A Friendly Reminder

It’s not too late to donate to WFMU’s marathon pledge drive. You don’t have to pay right away if you don’t have the money right now, and you don’t have to break your bank to support freeform radio. Even a small $5-10 donation would be helpful, and if you donate during one of your favorite programs, that shows the people at WFMU that you support that show and what they’re doing. If you’re not already listening to WFMU, you really ought to check out their program playlists and realaudio archives, which go back a few years now and continue to build up each week. It’s a wealth of information, music, and culture that is just waiting for you to discover it, and your donation helps to keep this valuable audio resource online.

The Frenzy Continues!

There’s another dis-packed interview with Malkmus in today’s Sunday Times.

On Kate Bush: “It seemed to be like it’s the 19th century, like she was an aristocrat riding her horse to the studio, but they weren’t doing that now, it’s the Seventies and she’s like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll make an album’ and ‘Oh, she’s so artistic’, all this baggage attached to it, it’s like an E. M. Forster novel.”

On Pink Floyd: “Hmm, let’s add some bells. Erase it. OK, let’s do it again, little slower, speed the tape up, put those tapes away, don’t worry I’ve got one year, it doesn’t matter. Let’s take the Rolls to London and go see that Nicolas Roeg movie. Oh no, let’s not. I’m going to fix this guitar tone for a couple of days . . . I’ll do this guitar solo. Beeoowwng! There, that guitar solo took a week to do.”

On Kurt Cobain: “Was Kurt the Messiah? Naaaoo! He was, like, a spoilt, cute, little guy, a good yeller who made that big, overproduced album that got huge. People have been feeding off that carcass for a long time.”

Other than those quotes, the article is almost completely pointless.

Malkmus Dis Frenzy!

There’s a very entertaining Stephen Malkmus interview in this week’s Entertainment Weekly, they seem to caught him in either a very silly or very cranky mood. Here’s the best part, cutting out the first half of the interview which isn’t nearly as interesting:

If your new album were a movie, what would it be?

Aliens. Sigourney Weaver comes back with short hair and all’s well at the box office.

You’ve cut your hair?

Yes, I have. It’s shorter than on the last album’s cover. It’s, like, parent-supported length. It’s a pretty massive move. Like if Eminem came back with dreadlocks for the next album.

If the album is Aliens, who is the alien?

Joe Piscopo. I think he represents mediocrity on Saturday Night Live, and I want to take him out. And I want to take out that Jimmy Fallon antitalent. I’m mad at Jimmy Fallon for being average and getting so much credit just because he’s cute. He better not show up backstage.

You’re starting a rap feud.

A beef! They’re called beefs!

Can you write a rap couplet about Jimmy Fallon?

I’ll only do so much to get in EW.

What’s the last terrible movie you’ve seen?

James Bond. Die Another Day. Tired premise, awful sexual-innuendo banter that’s not funny, and no sexy girls. Halle Berry is so in love with herself that you can’t even get a piece of her, you know? When you see the previews, you think “Well, this is gonna be junk entertainment, but it’s gonnna be okay. I’ll get my junk here.” But you didn’t even get that. It was just, like, so awful.

Your old band’s early records are getting deluxe reissues, and you’ve embarked on a solo career. Does that make you the indie-rock Sting?

Yeah, Sting and I are often mentioned in the same breath. (laughs) No, I’m not much like him. He’s one of my least favorite guys. He grosses me out. I hate that world music he makes. He’s just so successful. It’s like he’s got hovercraft shoes, blowing through the world without any problems. He’s Mr. Good Life. If there’s ever a movie, and he needs, like, an evil anti-Sting that he fights, I’ll be that guy. I’ll take him and Jimmy Fallon out.

Actually, you have a song on Pig Lib called “Us.” Maybe you’re the indie-rock Peter Gabriel.

I’d rather be him. He dresses up like a flower. Though he’s kinda weak too, you’ve got to admit. He also has a sort of English-rock-aristocracy attitude that has no underdog in it. I can’t really support him.

I Know It’s Hard For You, My Baby

I fear that I may have waited a little too long to write about Morvern Callar. Though a lot of memorable scenes and images are still fairly fresh in my mind, my initial flush of excitement about it has fallen off. Most of the things I would have wanted to say about the way the film looks and sounds have already been articulated far better than I probably would have written them by Todd here and here.

One of the things that I find very remarkable about Morvern Callar is the way the story’s tone subtly shifts about halfway through from being quiet, brooding, and morbid to becoming something of a dark comedy in the third act. Thinking about it right now, I can’t think of anything else I’ve seen or read that pulls that off without ever seeming disjointed. I’m also quite impressed by Lynne Ramsey’s visual storytelling skill in addition to her eye for composition and framing. Much of the first half hour is wordless, but is told with a flair for style and narrative economy that stood in stark contrast with the narrative mess of All The Real Girls, which I had seen earlier in the day. I’m sort of glad that I saw those two films in the same day, to see the difference between how an aspiring amateur and an inspired professional differ in telling a story on film.

Of course, one of the major draws of Morvern Callar is the superb soundtrack and the way it is integrated into the film. Since Todd has already discussed this, I’ll just note that it felt really…cool, for a lack of a better word, to hear a lot of songs which I already loved in the film. I was aware that the film had a number of Can/Holger Czukay songs on its soundtrack before I saw it, but I didn’t know which songs. When Can’s “I Want More” was played very briefly early in the film, I got a nice jolt of joy since that has always been one of my favorite Can songs, and I’ve always thought it was very underrated and neglected. It was also fantastic to hear one of my favorite Broadcast songs, “You Can Fall”, halfway through, even though I must admit that I didn’t immediately recognize it. The soundtrack album is quite good and very listenable as an album in its own right, but it does unfortunately lack The Mamas and the Papas’ “Dedicated To The One I Love”, which plays over the end titles to very good effect.

Girl, I’m Not A Piece Of Meat. Stimulate My Brain!

If you’re a fan of The Best Show On WFMU, you’re probably familiar with the comedy of Andy Earles. Andy is the man behind characters such as The Depressed Office Worker, Kevin, Samson, and Tanner Wildgrass. In comparison to the more flamboyant and sleazy characters of Jon Wurster, Earles’ comedy is considerably more subtle, drawing humor from pathos, depression, and very lowbrow culture. In addition to what he does on The Best Show, Andy is one half of the comedy team which created Just Farr A Laugh: The Greatest Prank Phone Calls Ever, one of the few comedy records genuinely worth paying for and unquestionably the finest prank call disc ever made. Well, actually, it might be the only good prank call disc ever made.

One thing you need to know before listening to these clips from the album is that you probably won’t appreciate them right away. You need to hear them a few times to get the full effect, and it certainly does help if you understand the numerous obscure cultural references being made. I can’t promise you that you’ll enjoy it, but I can promise you that if you do like it, you’ll love the whole record. And if you want the record, you really ought to buy it directly from Failed Pilot, because a) they deserve your money and b) the liner notes really are half the fun.

These first two are a set – you need to hear “Barbara: A Realistic Portrait” first before you move on to “Barbara’s Husband Clears The Air”

“Bedroom ETA” – This call is notable for the fact that Andy manages to sing about half of Jermaine Stewart’s “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes” off in an obnoxious falsetto without any interruption from the guy on the other line.

“Just Farr A Laugh: The Yogurt Machine” This one is jam-packed full of quotable bits. I will only spoil one of them for you: “Ice cream is a whole ‘nother sonuvabitch…I’m serious. Night and day.”

“Tim Butler, An Old Flatmate Of David J’s” – Featuring the worst fake British accent of all time, and a victim who remains strangely passive in spite of Butler’s belligerance.

In other Best Show news, a photo gallery full of shots taken by the webcam at last night’s special WFMU fundraising marathon is up on Friends Of Tom. The most exciting thing about the gallery is that you get to see plenty of images of special in-studio guest Philly Boy Roy!

I Was In A Three Piece Band, And There Were No Strings. Only Wings.

I don’t understand it. Why does nearly every band on the Everything Is Ending Here: A Tribute To Pavement record slow down and mellow out the song that they are covering? And why do more than half of the songs sound as if they are being sung by the same guy doing a Dean Wareham impression? I can’t understand why all of these bands feel the need to suck the joy out of a lot of these songs, and make them sound like drab Will Oldham-style depresso indie folk. Not even the most boring version by the most boring band can take away the essential quality of the songs themselves, but it’s not for lack of trying for some of these folks.

By far the most frustrating version on the record for me is Silkworm’s take on “And Then (The Hexx)”. They chose to record the original version of the song which I prefer, and they made the song more folky and far less stoner metal which is fine by me. The guitar performance is stunning – they really nail the song from start to finish. Unfortunately, the singing is terrible. Just pathetic, really. Flat, passionless, and dull like that Crash Test Dummies guy on tranquilizers. I cringe just thinking about it. And they get the lyrics all wrong! I just want to grab the guy and shake him, correcting him that the big vocal climax of the song goes “she knows what it’s like to be 45 and 53” NOT “he know why I let you be 45th and 53rd”! In print that may not look like a huge difference, but say it out loud. The second version just rips the melody out of it completely. Maybe I’m thoroughly unreasonable about this. Maybe I’m just very uptight about people recording really halfassed versions of my favorite songs. But this just isn’t right. Someone needs to tap some of these people on the shoulder and remind them that they will likely never write anything in their careers half as good as the weakest Pavement song. They need to show more reverence to the source material, if just by getting the fucking melody and the words right.

Also, did all of these bands just choose to ignore the fact that Pavement rocked fairly often and were almost always very fun? I mean, even the band who did “Unfair” slowed it down to a mid-tempo ballad! It’s cute, but it’s still all wrong. One of the few songs that is allowed to rock at least half as much as the original is Magoo’s cover of “Perfume-V”, but they mess around with the tempo by drastically slowing the song down before launching into the chorus, which completely wrecks the accelerating effect of the original. By the time they get to the “like a docent’s lisp…” outro, the song sounds like it’s about to nod off. This just isn’t right! “Perfume-V” should zoom right by you!

All three versions of “Here” sound as if they were performed by people in various states of exhaustion. Number One Cup’s take is the best, but it sounds like a James ballad, which maybe isn’t the best thing that could’ve been done with the song. Lunchbox’s version is just an uninteresting mess, and I can barely contain my deep loathing of the Tindersticks version of the song, which was already commercially released prior to this compilation. There is nothing good about the Tindersticks version. Nothing. It is perhaps the worst recording of a great song that I’ve ever heard. Malkmus should sue.

It’s not all bad, though. Plenty of obscure little indie bands do a serviceable job of playing the songs as straight as they can while lacking in charisma or energy. El Goodo’s “Trigger Cut”, Airport Girl’s “Cut Your Hair”, Saloon’s “Shoot The Singer”, Oranger’s “Winner Of The”, Micevice’s “Feed ‘Em To The (Linden) Lions”, Lenola’s “Kennel District”, Panty Lion’s “Baby Yeah” – they’re all okay, if a bit uninspired. Other bands who recorded misery-pop versions of the songs have some limited success with that formula. Tiger Wood’s version of “Ell Ess Two” sounds like the best Toad The Wet Sprocket song that was never written; Appendix Out’s version of “Frontwards” is true to the spirit of the original in spite of sounding far more ordinary; and Fuck’s “Heaven Is A Truck” is perfectly acceptable.

The bands who try to experiment with the songs are mostly hit or miss. Solex tries to write entirely new music for “Shady Lane”, but the vocal melody just sounds forced and awkward. Future Pilot AKA Vs. Colditz’s version of “Range Life” is drastically slowed and features what I believe are Japanese lyrics, but it just sounds like a dreary mess devoid of the song’s spirit entirely. C-Kid’s dark electropop version of “In The Mouth A Desert” works for me though, mostly because the song lends itself to that style fairly well.

There are a few unqualified successes on the record, such as Bardo Pond’s version of “Home”, which is the only song on the compilation that I think could really come close to matching the original in terms of quality. Of all the songs in the Pavement catalog, they chose the perfect song for themselves to play, it suits them so well. Quickspace’s cover of “We Are Underused” is very interesting, and adapts the song into their unique sound without sacrificing much of the original besides altering the deliverary of the chorus. Fivehead’s version of “Circa 1762” at the end of the second disc works well mostly because they stay so faithful to the original, which really ought to be a lesson to the rest of these bands. There’s nothing particularly special about Fivehead, but they surrender themselves so completely to the spirit of the song that it works nearly as well as the Pavement original.

Spinning Gently Out Of Time

I’ll be very blunt about this: All The Real Girls is a mess of a film. It’s not completely bad – I think that it could definitely be edited into a halfway decent 30 minute short film; but left to the devices of its writer/director David Gordon Green, it is padded out with unnecessary scenes and pointless selfindulgence which ultimately makes the film come across as the work of an amateur with some signs of potential.

All The Real Girls is the story of Paul, a somewhat charismatic jerk from a small rural town somewhere in the south. Paul eventually ends up in a relationship with his best friend’s younger sister Noel, who has just returned from her stay at an all-girls boarding school. Understandably, many of the characters in the story are wary of Paul’s intentions because of his reputation for sleeping with nearly every attractive girl he meets and eventually breaking all of their hearts. The relationship carries on until Noel has a moment of drunken infidelity, and Paul reacts in the most selfish and wrong-headed way possible.

The plot isn’t anything special, but it makes a virtue of its banality by letting the story play itself out naturalistically for most of the film. The best parts of the movie are the scenes in which Noel and Paul interact with other under less than dramatic circumstances, and the film keeps it focus squarely on the dynamics of those two characters. Green has a gift for capturing realistically awkward conversational rhythms and letting his inarticulate characters communicate themselves mostly through subtext. However, when the characters have to actually say what they really mean it usually just ends up sounding like like bad poetry or Oscar-reel histrionics. There’s plenty of parts in the film which don’t feel natural at all; scenes which either seem stilted due to the limitations of the actors, Green’s direction, or the script’s reliance on indie/art film cliches.

It’s hard not to be distracted by Green’s selfindulgence, as he sabotages his story by cluttering it with one-dimensional supporting characters who are never developed or have any particular relevance to the main plot but fill up a significant chunk of screen time. Other characters, such as Noel’s brother Tip or Paul’s mother Elvira, who both have larger roles in the film, are absent for so much of the film that when they both have their requisite breakdown scenes at the end, it’s hard to care very much about them. Tip is crucial to the story, but is never given enough screen time to develop beyond being anything more than an angry, depressive drunk. Why should the audience care if the guy has just knocked up some girl he barely knows when we barely know him? The same goes for Elvira – though it’s very sad that she is broke and lonely, and that Paul is almost completely inconsiderate of her emotions or her livelihood, is there any reason for her histrionics other than to tug at our heartstrings?

The pacing of the film is rambling to say the least. The scene-to-scene flow seems jagged and incongruent, and many scenes begin and end abruptly as if someone was watching the film on DVD and was occasionally advancing foward out of (understandable) boredom. Green does himself few favors by including a handful of selfconciously ‘arty’ scenes which do nothing to advance or enhance the narrative. The most egregious example would be the scene in which Paul and Noel converse while leaning on each other’s bodies so that they form a square with the floor in the middle of a lane at an empty bowling alley. It’s nothing more than a visual nonsequitor which pulls the viewer out of the story momentarily so that the hand of the filmmaker can be foregrounded. There’s another scene late in the film in which the story stops dead in its tracks so that we can watch Paul and his friends race cars around a homemade Nascar track. It seems to me that Green simply wanted to shoot that scene for the fun of it, and not because it advanced the story or characters at all. It’s almost as if Green was conciously cramming all of these pointless scenes and characters into the film so that if he was never again given the money to make another film, he would have been able to say that he at least stuffed as much as he could into All The Real Girls. I can imagine the man ticking off a checklist: Time-lapse montage of sunsets – check. Retarded kid – check. Dumb redneck sidekick – check.

Another problem that I have with the film is that Green’s professed desire to keep the film out of time results in a movie in which the characters and events seem entirely removed from the context of the contemporary United States. No one in the film shows any interest in culture or the world outside of their miserable little town, which I find hard to believe given that the story seems to be taking place somewhere between now and the mid-70s. There’s no evidence of television, music, newspapers, movies, sports, fashion, or any other kind of distraction save for drinking at social gatherings and bars. The absence of chain stores is made very conspicuous. Are we really to believe that this town is so incredibly dreary that nobody does anything other than work, mope, drink, and fuck? That may be a reality of a town like this, but it does seem a little too convenient that every character in the film would be equally uninspired and dull, and I am deeply suspicious of a filmmaker who would go out of his way to create a film full of such thoroughly joyless characters.

Other People Write Blogs Too, You Know…

Chris Conroy and Shroom from Milk Plus both remind me of why I definitely don’t ever want to pay to see The Hours. They confirm every bad feeling I’ve had about the movie based on what I’ve read and having seen that awful, awful, AWFUL trailer a few times over. Which is good, because I was starting to think about throwing my hands up in the air and seeing the film anyway, just so I could chime in on conversations about it. Thanks, guys.

The Adaptation blog on Susan Orlean’s site reports that the DVD of the movie won’t include any bonuses in favor of higher quality sound and visuals. This is very unfortunate. As whoever writes that blog (Susan herself? Jason Kottke?) notes, Adaptation is a film that would lend itself to bonuses rather well, and it’s too bad they won’t be doing anything with it. It’s not the biggest shock to me, though – Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman didn’t include a commentary track for Being John Malkovitch, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t for this film either. It probably is a better decision to keep the film free of a commentary track and let it speak for itself, as not to push one interpretation of the film on the viewer.

Songs For You

Theoretical Girls “Theoretical Girls”

Sally Crewe and the Stolen Moves “Forget It”

Hint Hint “Harry’s Ass Is A Picnic”

Juggaknots “I’m Gonna Kill U”

He Actually Titled One “Good Song”!

The entirety of Blur’s new album Think Tank is available here. (Thanks to Paul for the tip.) Early opinion of what I’ve heard – sounds like it could be a grower, but boy is it repetitive. They almost all sound exactly the same, as if Damon just wrote a dozen variations on “Mellow Song” from 13. “On The Way To The Club” is the only song that I immediately like a lot, and that’s mostly just because it sort of sounds like “19-2000” from the Gorillaz record.

Note: I think the titles are messed up on that Blur tracklisting. The song listed as “Battery In Your Leg” features the lyric ‘gene by gene’, and the song listed as “My White Noise” features a line about “a battery in your leg”, so I’m pretty sure track 14 is “Battery…” and 13 is “Gene By Gene”, and I would think that 12 is in fact “My White Noise”.

Coming soon to the blog, probably on Monday evening – I’ll write about All The Real Girls (I hated it) and Morvern Callar (I loved it), Just Farr A Laugh, and possibly Six Feet Under and X-Statix. I’ll definitely be posting some brand new MP3s too. Stay tuned.

Elsewhere In Bloggyville…

* It Came From The Sea: Your Disco Needs Them. (Them = Nikon and kicking_k)

* E Crunk over at Spizzazzz has created an excellent hip hop DJ mix and you can download it here. The bit mixing “Addictive” with “Work It” is sublime.

* Chris has resumed blogging, and he’s written an amusingly brutal review of the Daredevil movie.

My favorite bit:

Jennifer Garner is utterly lacking in personality — it’s one thing to play Elektra as something other than the stone-cold ice-queen she is in the comics, but you’d better replace it with something other than a vacant stare and a fat-lipped smile. When she puts on black leather and starts trying to kick ass, it’s almost laughable, since her every previous scene has been shot with a nice-girl reverence so pathetic you’d expect clip art of kittens and bunnies to be superimposed around the border of every frame while the My Little Pony theme song plays in the background.

You’ve Gotta Cultivate What You Need To Need

There’s a long feature article about Sonic Youth in Entertainment Weekly this week. If you know much about the band, the article isn’t very special or interesting – there certainly isn’t anything mentioned or said that I haven’t read before. The article basically gives an outline of their career to date, focusing on how individual and uncompromising the band is, and how they are fairly down to earth, easy going, responsible people. Overall, the article (written by David Browne) sells the band as good, talented, smart people, but I would have preferred it if he had written about the music a bit more. I don’t think the writing gives the reader much of an impression of what the band’s music sounds like except for in very vague implications of artistic growth and in mentioning the relative pop appeal of Goo and Dirty in comparison to their earlier releases. I’m not sure how effective this feature will be in inspiring EW readers to purchase a Sonic Youth record, but I certainly hope that many of them do.

I’m Making Very Sexy Installments

Yeah, yeah, Ryan, we get it – you hate fun. Let it go, man.

Let’s Hear It For The Gorch

Oh lord. Why must I be so broke?

This is the special Best Show premium for listeners pledging a minimum of $60 to WFMU during the show next week:

8 PM – 11 PM

Tom Scharpling’s The Best of the Best of the Best Show Volume One: A laff-packed compendium of The Best Show on WFMU! Tons of super-exclusive never-before-aired hilarity! Highlights include The Gorch’s audio tour diary and Soundtrackappella live at Maxwell’s! It’s The Best CD of the 2003 WFMU Marathon! Full length CD.

I think I may skip out on my movie weekend to have the cash handy for this. I’ve got to do it for The Gorch. If I had a steadier source of income right now, I wouldn’t think twice about this – I’d give WFMU a lot more than $60 if I had the money.

Automatic Bzooty

Well, I’m boring today. What are other bloggy types up to lately?

* Chris has written a post about Morvern Callar, which is a film that I’d really like to see. Unfortunately, the only place currently showing the film in NYC is a tiny theatre which only shows it in the late evening, making it very difficult on my schedule. However, MoMA is screening Citizen Ruth as part of an Alexander Payne retrospective, and I’d like to see Far From Heaven, so I think I may bite the bullet and just go in and see all three on Saturday. Maybe.

* Big Sunny D has written quite a bit about New X-Men #137

* Oh my God! Dan Emerson hates About Schmidt! Wait…maybe not?

* Kevin Keenan writes about the possibility that Jack White is wronging a copyright holder by quoting a section of Citizen Kane for the lyrics of “The Union Forever”. I’m not certain, but I think that Citizen Kane is technically in the public domain now, though most copyright privileges are claimed by the owners of the rights to distribute the film on DVD. It’s a tricky issue. I think that Jack White may be able to make a good argument for fair use, though.

* Nate Patrin defends himself from the scary zealots over at Popjustice. Seriously, those Popjustice kids seem to have absolutely zero grasp on reality. Can’t they just enjoy their pop music without the bizarre persecution complex?

Let’s Hear It For The Boy

Since I’m not very happy with the quality of the Jicks MP3s on offer in the previous post, and because Mike B of the Acid Casualties Jicks site is promising higher quality MP3s of the show next week, I’m not going to bother with the last two songs of the set. I’ll keep the MP3s of the show here til Mike gets his version online.

The Air Is Like Perfume From Vikings

Thanks to “allenc” and KEXP, here are MP3s from last night’s Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks Noisepop Festival set. I don’t have the last two songs of the show just yet because when I got to that point in the show, I was getting a lot of net congestion and rebuffering, so I’ll have to try again later. Hopefully the last two songs (“Church On White” and “1% of One”) will be available here tomorrow. I did my very best to keep the sound quality as high as I could, but there’s not much I can do to fix the compression.

01. Jenny & The Ess Dog

02. Phantasies

03. Water And A Seat

04. Dark Wave

05. Vague Space

06. (Do Not Feed The) Oyster

07. Animal Midnight

08. Vanessa From Queens

09. Sheets

10. Never My Love

11. Witch Mountain Bridge

12. Jo Jo’s Jacket

13. Us

(sorry, I’ve removed them now.)

Rubbing The Scabrous Flakes Of Sinister Conspiracy Off Yr Pointy Gargamel Chin

Jody may indeed be going “batshit insane”, but she speaks words of truth. If I spent as much time dealing with some of the knuckleheads she regularly engages with over on ILM, I’m sure I’d be batshit insane by now too, at least in regards to her subject matter.

What Do Giving It Up And Chewing On Foil Have In Common?

Shudder To Think “X French Tee Shirt” – Inspired by what Russ and Paul have written about Shudder To Think’s Pony Express Record in the past week, I’m offering an MP3 of one that album’s finest songs for those of you who may not be familiar with the record. “X French Tee Shirt” was a modest hit at the time of the album’s release, it was briefly in MTV’s “Buzz Bin” rotation and played on the more progressive alt-rock radio stations across the US. These days, this song would not have a prayer of getting that kind of airplay; it just goes to show how incredibly conservative radio has become since the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The Dirtbombs “Livin’ For The City” – I found this via Vic Funk, whose track record for recommending excellent songs has been consistently spot-on for as long as I’ve known him. (Well, aside from Julie Doiron…) I’m pretty sure that this is the best Stevie Wonder cover that I’ve ever heard.

The Delgados “Mr. Blue Sky” – Normally I think that The Delgados are pretty boring, but I’m very fond of this cover of the currently ubiquitous ELO song which I discovered via this ILM thread.

If it weren’t already being offered on her own website, I’d put up an MP3 of Laura Cantrell’s “All The Same To You”, which I’ve been enjoying quite a bit lately. If only all of the crossover pop country music in the world were more like this, and a whole lot less like Shania Twain and Faith Hill. Laura, as many of you probably know, is the proprietress of WFMU’s Radio Thrift Shop and has the prettiest southern accent that this northern lad has ever heard.

Otis Redding “Try A Little Tenderness” – The ‘definitive version’, recorded live at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. This is an amazing live recording, the studio recording of this song really doesn’t come anywhere close to this version.

…and special for Luke:

Morrissey “Jack The Ripper”