Ryan Schreiber Is The Most Uptight Man Alive

What is up with this ‘news’ article about Weezer’s Indie-shop only EP in Pitchfork today? Why is Schreiber making a big deal about this? Why is he so offended by the fact that Weezer appeals to and markets itself to a variety of different music fans? Why does he takes this all so personally? Can anybody possibly get more indie-snob than this guy?

About that EP: Weezer were asked to put together an EP by their label, cos Interscope were making special EPs for massive chain stores, and wanted to do something exclusive for independent record stores too. It’s a nice gesture, and it’s something that will make a good number of people go out of their way to get to an indie shop and put some money in their pockets. I don’t see what the problem is – this guy seems to think it’s some kind of sinister plot, that it’s about getting the ‘indie vote’. It’s not – they’re just doing a nice thing that they were asked to do. Lighten up, man. It’s just a single for “Keep Fishin'” with some live tracks tacked on. It’s pretty insignificant.

Ugh. It really bothers me that Schreiber has such a big audience for his disgusting simplistic indie-thug rants. This guy is so pointlessly bitter, I just can’t even begin to understand it.

Digging In The Dirt With A Shovel

This quote from an interview with Tom Clancy in this week’s Time Magazine strikes me as sort of depressing:

I don’t recommend writing as a form of employment, because it’s such miserable work. That’s how you tell a rookie: if they actually think the writing’s fun. I guess it is for the first one or two, but after that it just becomes miserable work, like digging in the dirt with a shovel. But it’s something you have to do. You can’t not do it.

I feel bad for the guy – obviously, writing isn’t a simple and easy thing, it takes a lot of effort and discipline. Still, judging by the guy’s output and his comments, I just start to wonder if he ever considered trying out different genres and writing styles. I can imagine writing several Tom Clancy books could be a very soul-draining experience – why didn’t he ever try to do something other than a Tom Clancy ™ book? It seems to me that though there is a small bit of universal truth in that quote, I think that Clancy is responsible for his misery far more than writing itself is.

You Don’t Feel Taken And You Don’t Feel Abused

I downloaded a copy of the new Spoon LP Kill The Moonlight last night – actually it’s a ‘rough mix’, which might account for why so much of it sounds so raw and natural, but also a little jarring and strange. My most immediate impression from listening to the record is that it’s even more minimal and skeletal than Girls Can Tell. The songs all come down to a basic rhythm, Britt Daniel’s Kurt Cobain-does-Motown voice, and some interesting bits of texture. Keyboards dominate the record, the guitars mostly are there to carry rhythm, and the drums and percussion are far less prominent than on Girls Can Tell. The way the drums were recorded on Girls Can Tell might be some of the best sounding recordings of percussion that I’ve ever heard. I have no idea what they did, but why more bands don’t record that way is beyond me. This record shares the natural, clean, musicians-playing-in-a-room sound, but occasionally veers off into a peculiar effect like the odd tremolo sound halfway through “Small Stakes”, or the distant mellotron strings on “Back To The Life”.

It’s a bit too early to pick favorites right now, but “Small Stakes”, a song doomed to hundreds of reviews which will compare it to Suicide, seems to be the early favorite for me. I can say this – part of the appeal of Girls Can Tell for me is that 6 of its 11 songs sounded like they really should have been massive radio hits in a perfect world. This record doesn’t really have any songs that sound like singles to me, which isn’t a good or bad thing. It’s just a difference.

(For those curious about which songs from Girls Can Tell I think should’ve been big radio hits, here are my picks: “Everything Hits At Once”, “Lines In The Suit”, “Anything You Want”, “Take The Fifth”, “The Fitted Shirt”, and “10:20 AM”.)

I Hate This Gravity That Makes Me So Weak

My copy of the The Shimmer Kids Underpop Assocation’s The Natural Riot arrived in the mail, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Josh Babcock, the leader of the band. I’ve listened to the record once through, plus a couple songs a few times through – I’m not ready to say anything about the record, I’m still taking it in. My immediate impression is that it’s a bit weirder than the last two records, and not as immediately catchy. The most striking song on my first listen is the instrumental “October Century”, which makes me think of radio signals from jazz stations audibly floating through deep space. It’s a very strange and beautiful song, layers of backmasked and live horns…I’ve never heard anything quite like this song. I wish it were longer than just three minutes.

There Has Never Been A Good Rock Album More Than 40 Minutes Long!

Do check out Your Guide To Spotting The North American Music Critic, a funny and very well observed article written by Nate Patrin, the man behind the Hipster Detritus blog. I’m trying to figure out which of those critic types I most resemble. You tell me.

God Made It Easier On Me

What would be the UK equivalent of myself getting into the Happy Mondays in 2002? Would it be like some UK kid in his early 20s discovering that they dig Pearl Jam or Jane’s Addiction? It is very hard for me to imagine what the Happy Mondays’ music sounds like to British ears at this point in history, but they don’t sound nearly as dated as I’ve been led to believe from reading the British rock press. “God’s Cop”, “24 Hour Party” and “Kinky Afro” all sound fairly fresh to my ears in spite of very obviously late 80s/early 90s production.

Let’s Boom Things Foward

Boom Selection is back, and they’re selling a 3 cd-rom set with 42 hours of music called ‘Nevermind The Bootlegs’, which includes a manifesto about ‘appropriationalist music’. The most interesting thing about the tracklisting is that they didn’t just limit themselves to bootlegged material, they are including non-licensed non-mixed official releases by several artists. They are brave bastards. I’ll be ordering my copy soon enough.

A World So Bitter Turns Sweet

I’ve been obsessed with “This Is My Room” by Jonathan Fire*Eater for a few months now. In addition to just sounding like pop bliss to my ears, a major part of my obession has been the song’s peculiar, often incomprehensible lyrics. Below, I’ve transcribed the lyrics to the best of my ability – can anyone out there give me a hand with figuring this out? I’d greatly appreciate any possible corrections that can be offered. I do not have the actual record, so I’m holding out hope that the lyrics may have been printed in the liner notes.

THIS IS MY ROOM

there are people in my eyes, they look for me in my eyes

there are people in my eyes, but they sleep all the time

everybody has a crutch, but man, they sleep so much

and I will hire the assassin just to kill the time

one of these days I will make this room mine

my chin on the sill, all the rain’s hanging still

please come home, this is a place unknown

the silence of the atoms that (are swimming?) in the air

between the taxi driver now, and his crying fare

there’s a breeze in the trees, I can paint what I see

by the (?) of the torch, moths on the porch

go flicker away, today was (a cain?)

so take me by the hand and walk me through the landscape

the sidewalks all glitter, and a world so bitter turns sweet

…it’s kinda cold!

there’s a place in the alley where my (family?) hit the ground tonight

I can wait, I can wait like a kid sleeping for Christmas

oh, the winter is (?)

Besides a few lines that I can’t make out, “This Is My Room” is particularly baffling to me cos it seems to have some kind of deliberate narrative structure that has been scrambled, and filled with some confusing lines which may have been throwaway lines, or perhaps parts of a puzzle that I just haven’t figured out yet. Whether I’m kidding myself or not, I’m fairly convinced that this song has an internal logic that I’m determined to figure out. The images of ‘orphan asylums’, painters, taxi drivers, the references to mothers, sons, and sisters – it’s all too specific to be accidental and purely stream-of-conciousness. The images seem deliberate, all there to set up a vivid picture of a scene, a time, a place. There seems to be some kind of story connecting all of the characters, places, and events, but the lyrics of the song seems out of chronlogical order, even though the lyrics remain in the present tense throughout the song. I have no idea what the character means when he sings about how “in another time, this could’ve been (his) room”, or that “one of these days (he) will make this room (his)”. What room? What about it? A room at the orphanage? A room with a new family? What?

Also, can anyone please tell me what Jonathan Fire*Eater vocalist/lyricist Stewart Lupton is up to these days? I obviously really love his lyrics and his voice, and I am very interested to hear what he’s been doing since JFE broke up and the other guys went off to form the Walkmen. Google has been pretty useless in finding out information about JFE and Lupton.

Everything All Of The Time

It’s been a while since I’ve listened to Radiohead, so I pulled out the I Might Be Wrong Live Recordings record this morning. The most striking song on the record has got to be the version of “Idioteque”, which is even more uneasy and nervous sounding than the Kid A version. This isn’t the best live version of the song that I’ve heard (or witnessed), but it doesn’t matter, it does the trick. Something about that droning keyboard sound in the song makes me recall every feeling of nausea that I’ve ever experienced; combined with the variety of percussive sounds, disorientation comes to mind. Once the ‘ice age coming’ part kicks in, the live drums sound like they are tumbling down a hill while Thom Yorke tries to outrun them with his voice.

It doesn’t really matter what Thom is singing in the song, the sound of his voice hits a very raw nerve with me. I know the feeling even if the words don’t match up with my life. I wish it were easier to understand what it is about Yorke’s voice that communicates so much to so many people – how his voice is able to get across so much unspoken subtext that his lyrics only vaguely touch on. I think this is why so many people always seem so clumsy when trying to articulate why they like or dislike the man’s music.

Sweet Little Back-Breaker

I know that making fun of Rob Liefeld is too easy, that it’s nothing but cheap shots – but still, come on…just look at this page from his newest comic. Look at the woman’s back on the top panel! Does Rob Liefeld really think that’s what a sexy woman would look like, or does he really have no idea how to draw anything other than deformed monstrosities like that?

Hulk Millar Does Manhattan

For me, Mark Millar comics are something of a guilty pleasure – though more and more, I’m not sure if I even get any real pleasure from his work. My fascination with his writing is becoming increasingly inexplicable, and might even border on self-abuse. First, the man writes a final Authority story arc which begins with promise (the superheroes get killed off by the G7 – interesting and sort of surprising), veers off into sadism and misogyny when he brings them back, and ends the story with a lame deux ex machina finale and a tasteless, delusional, self-congratulatory epilogue.

Now in his Authority 2.0, Marvel Comics’ The Ultimates, the man goes off and mindlessly destroys most of New York City in an issue-long fight scene. I think that I would be more willing to say “well, it’s just a big dumb action comic”, but Millar’s The Ultimates is so selfconcious in the way that it begs the reader to believe that the story is happening in a realistic, contemporary world that I think that he is unfairly trying to have it both ways. For example, there were no realistic repercussions of the events, no signs of death, the city was evacuated FAR too easily, it would never have been so fast. The issue’s events take place in a timeframe which would have to be less than 40 minutes. Impossible!

There’s a fairly recent event that is a pretty good template for what would happen in NYC was in a similar crisis, but Millar just ignores it in favor of having the Hulk throw Giant Man through a building, or having Iron Man blow up half of Grand Central Terminal, treating it all like a big laugh. With the exception of one throw away line, there is no acknowledgement of the human loss, or how the massive destruction of private and public property will effect real human beings. I would have thought that after September 11th people would think twice before doing this sort of thing in comics and movies, or at least make them portray them in sensitive, realistic terms. I guess I was wrong. Obviously, Millar is just trying to feed his fanboy constituency’s enormous hunger for disaster porn, and that this is a deliberately crass piece of entertainment. So – why am I supporting it with my money? I’m not sure. I think it’s time for me to stop, though.

Finally, a question: Why is Ultimates artist Bryan Hitch comfortable with drawing and releasing this issue of the Ultimates, but not the issue of the Authority that he scrapped cos it was about NYC under attack? That makes no sense. At least judging by what I have read, Hitch’s story apparently spent a lot of time with the Authority helping to rescue people. There certainly isn’t anything like that going on in The Ultimates.

What Costume Shall The Poor Girl Wear?

Stephen Malkmus will be curating/headling an All Tomorrow’s Parties event. That’s cool. What makes it fall into the “well, see there is a God, and He likes me” file is that it will be in the New York area. Yes! I’m very curious to see who Malkmus invites – I’m hoping that he deliberately goes for the most obscure music that he knows, and confuses audiences with a disturbing number of reformed 70’s Brit folk revivalists. “Pentagle who? Mellow Candle what?” It’d be really funny!

When People Stop Being Polite…

Dilettantism has a very intelligent, well-written post about MTV’s The Real World and its effect on the people who are casted on the show on his blog today. And oh look – Todd also wrote a wonderful post about Michael Jackson’s economic dilemma. Check it out.

We Will Pass Through Undetected

Listening to Sonic Youth’s Murray Street record this afternoon, I realized that even though I hadn’t conciously selected this album as my discman soundtrack for my exploration of Vinegar Hill, it was just about the most perfect record I could have chosen. I remember hearing “Disconnection Notice” on the street with all the old warehouses, noticing that I was enjoying that song more at that moment than I had previously. Listening to the album now, my visual memory recalls those low streets, the decay, the trash in the streets, the fences and walls, all baking in the afternoon sun. It makes a lot of sense. I knew from the first time I heard the album that it was an afternoon record, the music can’t help but bring to mind harsh sunlight and blue skies. Now the aimless, subdued melancholy of the record makes visual sense to me too. I’m starting to think that this might be my favorite record this year.

In related news: Amy Phillips’ poorly written and highly unprofessional review of the record in the Village Voice has yielded a number of irate letters to the editor, though there are a few positive reactions to the review as well. This vocal, polarized reaction probably just means she’ll be writing more terrible record reviews in the future. Sigh. This woman should NOT be employed to be a critic.

No More Of This “Selfless Hero” Bunk! It’s Time For ME!

I finally got around to buying a copy of Peter Bagge’s Megalomaniacal Spider-Man a couple days ago. It’s a lot of fun – Bagge gives us an irreverant ‘what if’ story in which Peter Parker learns that his Uncle Ben was actually a sleazy bastard, undermining his sense of morality, and causing him to lose the plot completely. He eventually quits the thankless life of fighting supervillains, discovers Ayn Rand (which I think is a nod to the fact that Spidey creator Steve Ditko is/was a zealous objectivist), and a decade later becomes a corporate media mogul. Bagge’s Peter Parker is a far right wing maniac, a sexist who taunts his left wing sweetheart Gwen Stacy, and tortures his ex-boss J Jonah Jameson (who is now in Parker’s employ). I’m being kind by not quoting any of the great one-liners and gags, you’ve really got to check this out. I’ve seen a lot of superhero parodies, but this is probably one of the most intelligent and savage ones I’ve ever encountered. Highly recommended.

Conquistadora

La Perdida #2 arrived in the mail today. I had a brief conversation with my friend yesterday about how she doesn’t care for Jessica Abel’s drawing style, that she thinks that her work is boring and ugly to look at. I disagree – I think Abel is an acquired taste, I think that she makes a lot of demands on the reader to pay attention and look at every panel. On a superficial level, her pages are sort of hard to look at – lots of chunky blacks and busy backgrounds, very little in the way of flashiness, a very basic approach to visually structuring pages. If you just skip through an issue of any of her comics, every page looks more or less the same. It’s lazy to write her off this way, it’s the easy way out. Reading through the new issue of La Perdida, I noticed that every panel seems fresh and alive if you only pay attention to that one drawing. Each drawing is very well thought out in graphic terms, her storytelling is wonderful, and her skill with gesture and expression is very well-observed and spot-on.

I do wish she would switch to full color after she finishes La Perdida – the covers for this comic are beautiful, just stunning.

Reading through the issue, I was wondering where the story was going – it seemed a bit aimless, more mundane than the first issue of the series. As I finished the issue, I realized that Abel had done a very good job of setting up and complicating the relationships of the characters, as well as building up tension for the final scene with Memo confronting Carla about how she really feels about being an American in Mexico. Here’s an excerpt from that brilliant scene:

Carla: We should go to Frida (Kahlo)’s house.

Memo: You are such a little bourgeois. You and your Frida…

Carla: How can you say that? She was a Communist!

Memo: With her domestic staff and her elitist ideas.

Carla: She was NOT an elitist! You don’t know anything about her. She died while working on a portrait of Stalin!

Memo: It doesn’t matter anyway…Who cares WHAT she thought, since now she’s basically kitsch. She’s decoration for tourist’s t-shirts; the safe pretty, folkloric Mexican.

Carla: She’s still a symbol of the power of women artists!

Memo: …the power of women artists to be co-opted by the late-capitalist male power structure to sell product and dilute Mexican identity!

Carla: Have you even looked at the poster in my dining room? Come down and look at it… This work is so raw, it’s so strong – it’s not decorative in the least! It’s full of blood and guts.

Memo: That just shows the extent to which the globalizers are able to steamroll over any individuality.

Carla: No, really, Memo. I was in college, studying basically nothing but how to be a good consumer, then in this art history class I studied Frida and suddenly Mexico comes alive for me; I want to know about the Mexican part of myself.

Memo: Because it somehow gives you the illusion that you’re different from your shallow friends?

Carla: I’m serious!

Memo: And so you, what? Decided to work for better conditions in the maquiladoras?

Carla: No, I…

Memo: You started lobbying Congress to end NAFTA?

Carla: Memo…

Memo: You started wearing ridiculous long skirts and braids that made you look Mexican-y. Did you even learn Spanish?

Carla: I tried! And I started paying attention to the news!

Memo: …a bourgeois dilettante in the lovely aesthetics of a Mexico that isn’t now and probably never was.

The conversation doesn’t end there, but this excerpt does. I have a great appreciation for how Abel is able to harshly criticize her main character, Carla, but also be empathetic and understanding of how she feels. There are no flat characters in Abel’s story, no binary morality. Abel seems a lot more interested in raising questions rather than offer any kind of editorializing – I can see where her background in journalism informs her writing. She’s all about reporting the facts, and examining how cultural and economic factors effect ordinary people. La Perdida is really something special – I highly recommend that you all run out and put some cash in Abel’s pockets. She deserves it.

Beg Me To Stay

Yesterday, thanks in part to reading about it on Forgotten NY, I took a walk around the Vinegar Hill area of Brookyln. Vinegar Hill is just beyond the DUMBO neighborhood where I used to live. I’m sure I’m conflating some of it with the Brooklyn Navy Yard disctrict (which is soon to become movie studios, by the way) – I just kept walking along Front Street past York Street. I’d only ever explored this neighborhood a handful of times, and mostly in vain – I never went in so deep as I did yesterday. I found that the further you get into this area, the more surprising it becomes.

It’s filled with decay – old houses, factories, lots, warehouses – everything is in a state of disrepair. There were no shops, but some streets full of very old storefronts which clearly haven’t seen business in several decades. The whole area seems like time had just passed it by, most everything seems out of time and sort of unreal. In contrast with the oldness of everything that is there, a number of different graffiti and printmaking artists have used the area as their personal canvas; so in addition to old, strange and outdated signage, there are cryptic words and images everywhere you look.

Every street seemed to offer up a new surprise – a nearly-demolished warehouse with the words “Beg Me To Stay” spraypainted on a crumbling wall on one street, a lot full of old cars (mostly dating back to the 50s and 60s, in fairly decent condition) on another. One street had the aforementiond storefronts, all buildings dating back to the early 1800’s, many clearly occupied but in terrible condition. One of the strangest finds was a gated white mansion which with a large chunk of the electric plant that dominates the coast of the area located on part of the estate. I have no idea what the story of this mansion is, but I’d really like to find out more about it. This guy seems to be pretty interested in the mansion too. I’ll be going back later in the week to take a few rolls of photographs to keep as a personal record of this strange, spooky area.

Wish Fulfillment

If I was a sick little kid, and I could have a wish granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, I would make them have the Neptunes produce a song with this structure: First verse, Stephen Malkmus on vocals. Second verse, Ghostface Killah. Sung chorus by Andre 3000. Third verse, Jay-Z. Chorus by Andre. Fourth verse, Mark E. Smith. Chorus by Andre, with outro vocals by Bob Pollard. And it would be amazing. I’d want the Neptunes to make a track not entirely unlike Mystikal’s “Bouncin’ Back”, but a bit faster and bouncier.

Thanks Yo

Grant from Barbelith sent a reply to Steve Smith from Clearchannel’s letter to Entertainment Weekly last week, and cc’d a copy to Smith himself as well:

Dear editors,

Yours sincerely,

Grant A. Balfour, former radio listener

…and this is the reply from Smith:

From: “Smith, Steven F”

To: “‘grant b, sun reporter ‘”

hahaha, thanks yo. Kinda mis typed that. Sorry

dude.

Did he interpret the email so that he understood Grant’s words to say that ClearChannel’s music programming was “tha shit”, and just mindlessly skimmed through the part where he identifies himself as “Grant A. Balfour, former radio listener“?

Amazing. Corporate jock culture will destroy us all, for real.

Links of Interest:

Nude As The News has an excellent interview with Thurston Moore, in which Moore speaks openly about Sonic Youth’s writing process, record label politics, and ponders how his band could be marketed in today’s music industry.

Phil Jiminez talks about his upcoming work on New X-Men in this Comic Book Resources article.

Guided By Voices have cancelled tomorrow night’s gig at Irving Plaza in NYC. For those keeping score, this is the second time this show has been cancelled/postponed. Poor GBV can’t catch a break lately – first time, Bob injured himself. This time, someone in the band had a death in family. My condolences to whoever it was, and hopefully GBV will be back in NYC soon.

Check out the Spizzazzz blog for a live running commentary on tonight’s Tim Westwood’s Radio One program including myself, Suds, and the folks who run the blog.

Thanks to a tip off from Tom Ewing, I decided to check out “House of Jealous Lovers” by The Rapture. I am very, very impressed with this song – finally, someone manages to do that ‘contemporary Gang Of 4’ thing and gets it right. It blows !!! and Radio 4 out of the water, that’s for sure. The song has an incredibly urgency to it, and the vocals have a very believable (as opposed to affected) sound of panic; but the sampled disco beat is what puts it over the top for me. Top notch stuff – I’ll have to check out more by this band sometime soon. I don’t remember these guys being anywhere near this good when I saw them open for Stephen Malkmus last year. I hope that this is more than just ‘studio magic’…

Also, I should add that I’ve come around to really enjoying El-P’s Fantastic Damage record. It’s just one of those times when I overcome a prejudice for an artist, and I begin to wonder what my problem was in the first place. It’s probably one of the best records I’ve heard this year, very likely the most musically progressive too. It ‘rocks’ very hard, in a dizzy cut-up beats sort of way. It also reminds me of the RZA’s best production work, without being a pale imitation. Those who file share should try out “Deep Space 9mm”, “Tuned Mass Damper”, and “Stepfather Factory”.

It has been two and a half weeks since I bought a comic, about four since I bought one that I enjoyed. I feel like I am in withdrawl, I just haven’t been anywhere near a comics shop. The good news is that a new issue of New X-Men and the first issue of X-Statix will be out on Wednesday, and that my copy of La Perdida #2 by Jessica Abel that I ordered from Fantagraphics should be here any day now…

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

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

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

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

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

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

PM

Fitting in rather well with my ranting about professional music critics, Glenn McDonald sums up exactly why personal blogs (and I would think some message boards, as well) are a far better source for music criticism and commentary than most any commercial publication in this interview:

I think if I had my way everybody who writes about music would run their own little sites, and we’d leave the commercial publications to report gossip and tour dates. You have to learn a lot about a reviewer to have any idea how their tastes correlate with yours, and the usual magazine setup is no good for that.

AM

All I can say is that I’m stunned that this woman is a published critic, but I’m not at all shocked that she’s being published by the likes of the Village Voice.

Yes, I am aware of the fact that Ms. Phillips’ review of the Sonic Youth record has more than a passing resemblence to my brief review of the new Oasis record yesterday. The difference: I just put it up on my blog. I would never try to sell something like that. Also, I’m not clinging romantically to my youthful memories of Oasis fandom, if there even were any. This woman is clearly dealing with how she relates to the music and the band, it has nothing to do with critically assessing the music on the record. She’s clinging to what she admits are flawed ideas about what it is to age as an artist. She’s simply far too immature to have her opinions taken seriously, and I think it is offensive that she is being published by a (well, to most people) respectable newspaper.

Let’s be realistic : the Village Voice music editor has an agenda. They could have printed any number of reviews by any number of reviewers who would have written about Murray Street in a positive way, but a) they wanted to be ‘different’ and ‘daring’, so they printed the reactionary review, the review that would stir up the mail sack or b) the editors have a problem with Sonic Youth and commissioned a negative review. Most every other magazine, fanzine and newspaper is printing positive reviews of Murray Street. They wanted to be different, cos they’re the VILLAGE VOICE! They’re rebels!

It bothers me that some people can’t separate their idealized notions of who Sonic Youth (and other bands) are from the actual music, that they refuse to understand the ebb and flow of an artist’s output. I hate that to so many people, growing older as an artist is some kind of crime, and that having a large discography is somehow a drawback. Having a large discography means that you have to think about more things, consider more factors when evaluating an artist. It makes talking about an artist more complicated, so most people just cop out. They automatically sink into the ‘well, most of it is just for the obsessives’ mode of thinking. They simply refuse to examine the big picture of what an artist has created.

How many record reviews have you read with the phrase “a return to form”? Isn’t it funny how every Sonic Youth record, every Pavement/Malkmus record, every GBV/Bob Pollard record, etc almost always contain those words? What is it about record reviewers that makes everyone want to assume that all the records since the big popular canonized album are automatically lousy?

WE PLAY THE HITS

The letter to Entertainment Weekly attributed to the “Image Director” of Clear Channel, Steve Smith, that I found on I Love Music really boils my blood.

Satellite radio is not the answer to good radio, much like cable TV is not the answer to good TV. Both just give you more choices of crap.

Steve Smith

Production Director/Imaging Director, Clear Channel

Steven.Smith@ClearChannel.com

Lebanon, N.H.

The fucking gall of this man is almost unbelievable. His contempt for the common person is staggering. He does little more in this letter than to confirm what most people already assumed about Clear Channel and their ilk: they aren’t just unconcerned with the public good, they have a genuine antipathy for the common person. They do not understand music and art’s place in culture, and are willing to do irreperable damage to American culture if it means creating a higher profit margin.

There are an incredible number of people who hate the way the airwaves have sold out the public interest – I can’t understand why there are so few people willing to do anything about it. It’s very disheartening. Something has got to give. This sort of corporate corruption, and the government which enables it to happen need to be implicated, they need to be punished severely. Still, most people will ignore this sort of corruption because it’s “only the radio”.

THE SUN’S GOING DOWN ON THE DAYS OF YOUR EASY LIFE

I would have liked to have enjoyed at least one of the songs on the new Oasis album. Unlike a lot of other people, I’m not afraid to say that I can think of at least twenty songs by this band that I genuinely enjoy. I even liked a couple of the songs on their last LP, which most anyone can agree was a lifeless dud. I also like about half of the Be Here Now LP, which even the band (clearly their own biggest fans) hates. When I got around to downloading and listening to the 11 new songs, I didn’t feel sad or disappointed – I just felt sorry for Noel, Liam, and company. They sound like a police composite artist’s rendering of what the band might sound like based on descriptions and testimonials of their music taken from negative reviews. Nothing on this album moves me in the slightest – it’s dull, limp, phoned-in. I felt vaguely insulted listening to it.

This is a band which desperately needs to break up before they ruin their legacy entirely. There’s no shame in quitting now, Noel. You’ll do the same sales when you’re solo the way Oasis is going now. Give it up. Have a little dignity, alright?

My hatred for Vice Magazine runs deep and strong. This is but one small example. I don’t care how much money there is in it, no one under an circumstances should write a magazine from the perspective of an opionated know-nothing slumming faux-white trash urban rich kid hipster drowning in a sea of irony and Pabst Blue Ribbon. It’s pure evil.

Earlier this evening, I watched an episode of Musicians on Bravo. The show is meant to be the musical equivalent of James Lipton’s Inside The Actor’s Studio program; but it lacks all of the charms of that show, and magnifies all of its weaknesses. It is hosted by Rolling Stone writer David Wild, who may very well be the ultimate personification of everything which has ever been wrong with Rolling Stone and their brand of music criticism. Wild is a total bore – when he’s not brown-nosing his guests (in this case, Randy Newman) in such a shameless way that it would make even Lipton wince, he’s tossing off lame personal anecdotes about how that guest’s music effected his life. The guy’s taste can best be described as full-on baby boomer whitebread canon-worshipping. He is exactly the kind of guy who really digs Randy Newman, so I don’t for a moment doubt him when he gushes – the same goes for his interviews with Heart and Hall & Oates. Yes, this is a man who takes Hall & Oates seriously.

Watching the show, I was trying to figure out what I think of Randy Newman. I feel confused by it, mostly. I can understand the appeal of his lyrics – they are clever enough, I can certainly see how they appeal to aging boomers of a certain type. His voice is obviously an acquired taste, but something about it strikes me as being ‘wrong’ in a way that I can’t seem to articulate. His piano playing is fairly inconsequential; his melodies are sometimes pretty good, though often it just seems like the melody and musical accompaniment are just something to frame the lyrics. To be less diplomatic – a lot of his songs just sound like he wrote something clever and decided to prop it up with some music. I would appreciate the guy a lot more if he were a poet, or an essayist. Never the less, something about Randy Newman seems off to me. It could be all of the things I mention, it could be something else I can’t quite articulate, it could just be me. I’m sure some people might say I’m just too young to ‘get it’…

Good news: The Warren Ellis Forum is shutting down!. I will not miss the WEF, though I am sure that their fickle, shapeless politics, hollow self-righteousness, and their collective taste in bland comics will find a new home in no time. To say the very least about Warren Ellis, the man has the sense to quit while he’s ahead. Still, shutting the place down now allows him to bask in praise, and spew self-congratulatory rhetoric based only loosely in fact. I maintain that the WEF has done nothing innovative, and has only benefitted from being in a right place/right time position. I think the WEF community only reinforces comic shop culture, and though they would like to think they are raising the bar, they really do little more than to celebrate a horrible status quo. Good riddance.

My love for the Forgotten New York website grows daily, and as a result, my love for the city itself is nearly off the charts. Whether it’s reading up on COST and REVS, the history of Roosevelt Island, the other lesser-known islands around the city, step streets in the Bronx, or the histories of the signage, advertisements, and subways of the city; my love for the place as a whole grows exponentially.

I saw The Polyphonic Spree and The Danielson Famile at the Knitting Factory last night. It was a great show – The Danielson Famile were in good form, with a slightly different instrumental line-up than when I last saw them. They played a fun, improvised set focusing on their singalongs for a very enthusiastic audience. The set included a lot of my favorites, such as “Deeper Than The Gov’t”, “Coolest Lil’ Dragon”, “Don’t You Be The Judge”, “Good News For The Pus Pickers”, “Rallying The Dominoes”, “We Don’t Say Shut Up”, and “Body English” – I’m forgetting one or two from their first LP.

Before the Danielson Famile hit the stage, a new band called Ursa Minor played a brief set of music from the Fiona/Tori/Sarah McLachlan/Aimee Mann school of unthreatening ‘mature songwriting’, augmented by a Huey Lewis-style horn section. They weren’t that bad, but were very bland and forgettable. I couldn’t help but think that Glenn McDonald would have really liked this band.

Since I had to catch the last train out of the city, I could only stay for the first half hour of The Polyphonic Spree’s set; but lucky enough for me, the four songs that I wanted to hear the most were among the first five songs played. Though I did technically get what I came to see, I really wish I could have seen the rest of their set. They are a sight to behold – 23 highly enthusiastic people (including the most rocking french horn player of all time) playing, singing, physically emoting joyous pop music on a small, cramped stage. As much as I like the record, I don’t think that the recording does this band justice.

I picked up the new issue of Stay Free! and Found Magazine, the latter thanks to a tip off from Margin Walker on Barbelith. I’m really loving Found…I’m just sort of puzzled why the magazine version relies on filler like a crap interview with Lynda Barry, and illegal excerpts from the New York Times, The Onion, and a John Steinbeck novel. I would hope that in the future, the magazine dedicates itself entirely to found items and lets the concept of the magazine/website speak for itself. The newest issue of Stay Free is probably my favorite thus far, it is a theme issue about conspiracy theories, and examines the topic from a number of interesting perspectives – I’ll talk about this issue more here or on Barbelith at a later time.

On the way home, I finally got around to listening to The Breeder’s Title TK in its entirety and in its intended sequence (well, actually I listened to “London Song” twice over, so maybe not). I can understand why some Breeders fans are let down by this record, but I like it. Having never been anything more than a casual fan of Kim Deal, I don’t have any great expectations for her or her bands. As of this writing, I’m fairly convinced that Title TK is the most consistent non-Pixies record she’s ever been involved in creating. Don’t get me wrong – I really love a lot of older Breeders/Amps songs, it’s just that the records have always struck me as terribly uneven. I think that it would be easy for someone to get an impression of unevenness from a casual listen to this new album (I know I did at first), but when listening to the record last night, completely exhausted, it seemed to make a lot more sense.

Every song on the record sounds like it is in a drunken/stoned stupor, some songs having a better composure than others. “London Song” is definitely my favorite song on this album, I can’t help but love how wobbly and dizzy the song feels with it’s awkward stops and starts, it’s sweet melodic refrains, and its confused, incoherant lyrics. “I’m leaking pure white noise.” “There’s something to believe.” “I thought I’d know better.” “Misery’s fun, I’m kissing everyone. I’ve got to hold my tongue.” Most of the lyrics on this album come off as quietly mumbled nonsequitors, the half-formed ideas of someone who is stumbling around after partying way too hard, Andrew WK-style. Like I said, the whole album feels this way, like it’s either sloppy-lampshade-on-head-screaming-“wooooo!” drunk (“Huffer”, “London Song”, “Little Fury” “Full On Idle”), or about to pass out (“Off You”, “Forced To Drive”, “Put On A Side”). It’s not hard to imagine that this is what it feels like to be a Deal sister given their respective biographies. All in all, it’s a good, weird little record; and certainly a lot more interesting than most people are giving it credit for being.

Delayed Reaction

Last week the United States Copyright Office announced new performance royalties for all US webcasters, a move which will price out nearly every noncorporate webcasting concern in the country save for a few exceptions, such as WFMU, who will be financially damaged but not ruined by these new laws.

This is a major blow to those who love diversity and autonomy in broadcasting, and a major victory for corporate interests who seek to control and wipe out all competition in internet broadcasting, something which most logically belongs in the hands of the people. For more information, go here and here. For a real audio archive of WFMU program director Ken Freedman’s on-air discussion of this topic, its history, and its ramifications, click here.

Hello John this is John this is John John this is John…

Speaking of WFMU, their new program Aircheck recently broadcasted an abridged recording of John Lennon acting as a guest DJ on a SoCal radio station called KKHJ in 1974. It’s a pretty interesting thing to hear – Lennon comes off alternately as a likable gentleman, and an irritating Robin Williams-esque spazz. The most amusing parts for me are the bits in which he does live on-air advertisements for the station’s sponsors, including a pre-chain Tower Records, zit cream, and some clock store offering up Big Ben replicas.

Aircheck also recently aired a grim 1998 on-air conversation with Hank Earl Carr (aka Joseph Lee Bennett), a man who was on the run for what he claims was the accidental death of his son, and his subsequent murder of three police officers. It’s very unsettling when Bennett calmly states that he is going to kill himself because he does not want to be executed or sent to jail – it gives me the chills. For more about Carr, go here, here, and here.

Also in that real audio archive is the airing of a tape of an unidentified DJ in the 70s who sounds as though he is losing his mind on the air as he psyches his listeners up for the weekend.

A Little In The Baggy, A Little In The Purse

In case some of you weren’t aware, there are some new Jay-Z recording floating around on various file sharing services right now, they are from a special advance promo of this fall’s The Blueprint 2. The songs are “South Philly Niggaz”, “Show You”, “Calling My Name” and “Early in the Morning”.

I’m not sure how I feel about them just yet – I really love “Calling My Name”, which has this thumping one-note bass line and a piano sample that sounds extremely familiar but I can’t place it. It sounds a lot like late 70s Elton John or something. It’s really smooth and sweet, it isn’t entirely unlike a mellow “Takeover” with a little dash of “Hard Knock Life”. This song, like the other three just don’t sound finished yet – I hope they aren’t. All four are promising, but seem to be missing something, they lack the ‘oomph’ of other recent Jay-Z music.

Measured up against the best songs off of The Blueprint, this stuff is neither here nor there. I hope Hov’s saving the best for the actual release and is just trying to throw us all off with this promo.

The Same Band You’ve Always Known?

For the past few weeks, Steven McDonald from the band Redd Kross has been recording his own version of the White Stripes’ White Blood Cells LP with his bass playing transposed over the band’s music. He’s been putting up MP3s of each completed song on Redd Kross’ official website, and now has the blessing of the White Stripes themselves.

Here are some excerpts of what McDonald has to say about this project:

I hope that anybody involved with the White Stripes will see this as the tribute I have intended it to be. I am in no way trying to suggest that their music is not complete or unfinished, in fact I’m sure that some could use my interpretations as the perfect argument against the use of bass guitar in their music. If that is it’s true validity, then so be it…

That is what this performance is for me, an opportunity to be a part of someone else’s group identity, in this case family even. It’s beyond fan … I’m joining the band! This is still very much the White Stripes … same band just a new take on their latest record … rather my take on their latest record…

It’s a pretty interesting and bold project, and I think that this is sort of the next logical progression from the bootleg phenomenon – I think things like this will become increasingly common as it becomes more clear to people that audio recordings don’t ever have to be considered finished, that the audience can now ‘improve’ and alter the songs to meet their specifications.

Anyway, if you want to jump in on this, now is the time. Starting on Monday, McDonald will be reposting one song per day to catch people up to where he is on the record. So Monday, it’s “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground”, Tuesday it’s “Hotel Yorba”, and so on.

My verdict on what I’ve heard thus far – the two songs currently online, “The Union Forever” and “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” are improved by the addition of bass/keyboards in my mind, but “Little Room” (which was posted last week) was fucking DESTROYED by the bassline that McDonald added. He should give that one another shot, maybe…

That’s the way the Jell-O judicates, folks.

Clinic are not meant for large outdoor free concerts. This is something that I learned last night – this is music that is meant to be paid full attention to, and is diminished by having loads of people chatting amongst themselves while they play “Porno” and “The Second Line”. Clinic is music meant for small rooms, and it’s meant for people who have something more than a casual interest in their music.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Clinic’s actual performance, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I especially loved last night’s cool, mellow “Mr. Moonlight”, which was suited very well to being played on a pier in the twilight. I was happy to see a slightly different set from the last time I saw the band too – they traded “Come Into Our Room” for a new song, and “Magic Boots” for “Monkey On Your Back”. I was excited to hear them play different songs, even if it was at the expense of two of my personal favorites. Still, them not playing “Come Into Our Room” was a slight let-down. The last time I saw them perform that song, it seemed like a perverse, jittery encantation; it was a perfect song for them to open up a show. “Candle lights and all things bright, come into our room.” Also, it was sort of strange that they skipped that song since it is their newest single…hmm.

The two opening acts were very, very lame. Radio 4 played bland Gang Of 4-meets-INXS 80s bass heavy rock, striking me as nothing more than a bunch of unimaginative bores cashing in on the popularity of their Brooklyn home. The program said that their lyrics were about “living in the city of New York”. Eek.

Firewater were just embarassing. This is a band that spent nearly an hour offering up every ‘alt-rock’ musical cliche known to man, seeming as though their prime musical ambition was to have their music appear in advertisements and on tv shows. Terrible, mind-numbing Corporate Rock.

On the way home, I was thumbing through a copy of Tuesday’s New York Post that was on the seat next to me on the train. I found Dan Acquilante’s review of Sonic Youth‘s Murray Street album. It was a positive review, but one error jumped out at me – Acquilante says something to the effect of “the album starts off strong with “Rain On A Tin Roof””. Do the New York Post employ fact checkers anymore? Is Dan Acquilante so lazy or under such severe deadline pressure that he could not bother to look at the cd packaging to note that the opening track is called “The Empty Page”, and that the third song is titled simply “Rain On Tin”? It’s such a simple error, but it ruins the authority of the review and the reviewer in one fell swoop. I know the Post is the last paper to expect integrity and facts from, but this is just ridiculous.

Some links of interest:

I highly recommend Acoustica‘s MP3 mixing program. It’s certainly been one of the leadings factors as to why I haven’t been posting any new content here for the past several days. The program is extremely easy to use, and I’ve mostly been using it to create cd-long DJ-style mixes and ‘radio edit’ versions of long songs that occupy too much mix cd space. Example: “Karen Revisited” by Sonic Youth, which I’ve faded out around the 4 minute mark, excising a little over 7 minutes of instrumental noise at the end of the song proper. Don’t get me wrong – I love that bit of the song, but not at the expense of packing as many Sonic Youth songs onto a mix cd-r as I can.

Sequential Tart is probably no secret to the majority of people reading this blog, but I still want to give a big thumbs up to their monthly Bizarre Breasts column, which skewers poorly drawn female comic characters, mostly focusing on the Image Comics crowd. It’s an easy target, sure, but the quality is there. For real.

Henry Raddick fans should rejoice – The man himself breaks his silence in an interview with The Register. What does Mr. Raddick have to say to other 400 lb men with low self esteem? “Enjoy the battle,” says Raddick. “It’s you against the entire world.”

I have no idea who these people are, but they have me linked, they’re funny, and they are from NYC, so I return the favor. Welcome aboard, ‘Universal Donor’ and ‘Pussy Willow’.

People in the NYC area who are planning to see the free Clinic show tomorrow at Pier 54 should take note: The Village Voice is wrong, the show starts at 7 PM, and Clinic won’t be going on til around 9 PM. The Voice even lists the wrong number for the venue. The proper number for Hudson River Park is 212 791 2530, you can call them to double check if you like.

To be perfectly frank, all of the current alternatives to Audiogalaxy aren’t very good. I hate the way that Kazaa, Limewire, Morpheus, and QTrax function – I can think of nothing positive to say about any of those programs. Filetopia is alright, but has a fairly weak selection. SoulSeek is the best I’ve found thus far, but that’s probably just because it’s being overrun with Audiogalaxy refugees, and is building up AG’s shared library a bit better than the others.

I’ve been running the same tests on all of them. First, I check to see what comes up when I put in seaches for popular artists that I know very well – Pavement, Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney, and The Neptunes. Invariably, the results are a fucking mess, there’s no rhyme or reason to the order of results. I hate that.

Second, I’ve been putting through searches for the more obscure interests that I have, and 90% of the time, there are no results. The databases on these services are of no help to me, not for the things that I most valued Audiogalaxy for.

Until someone makes something that functions in the clean, organized way that AG ran, or at very least the harddrives that made up that database are reunited, it looks like I’m limited to only downloading the very music that the RIAA set out to block me and people like me from accessing.