For those of us who would like to indulge in elitist giggle-fits:

First, read the nominations for this year’s Harvey Awards.

Then read the fanboy responses in this thread on Newsarama about Mark Waid declining his best writer nomination.

All due respect to Mr. Waid, but how he and Ron Marz even ended up in the best writer category along with Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and Alan Moore is baffling to me.

Ah, the new issue of America’s Dreaming just arrived in the mail… it looks great, Sophie.

I’ve been listening to “Share The Dream” by Taylor Savvy over and over, and it’s only starting to feel a bit unhealthy. It’s essentially an early 80s roller-rink dance pop song, with the mantra “me and my dad share the same dream of still being in school (but it’s a nightmare!)”. That’s it. It’s that simple. I maintain that it is a work of pop genius. I am very jealous of the lucky Barbelith folks who got to see him play with Peaches this weekend in London. I really wish that I could have tagged along…

I’ve been reading a lot of old articles about Pavement… all a part of my cyclical obsession with them, a seasonal cycle that’s been unbroken since 1994. For some reason, the spring = Pavementmania for me. I’m like a capistrano swallow…

I’m particularly fond of this one article from The New Yorker, circa Brighten The Corners. It (along with this article from BAM) seems to very eloquently explain a lot of my love for the band, particularly the lyrics of Stephen Malkmus…

choice bits:

The music burrowed through the dense, dissonant textures that were fashionable in eighties underground rock, then took flight in stately melodies that smacked of a sunbaked suburb and a refined pop-record collection. A flat-toned voice sang lyrics that sometimes touched on suburban discontent but more often drifted into unanalyzable abstraction. “Life is a forklift.” “Now my mouth is a forklift. This I ask, that you serve as a forklift too.” What did it mean? No one had any idea. That was the beauty of it. Pavement was credited to “SM, Spinal Stairs, and G. Young”; it looked to be some kind of dangerous Dadaist cult.

Malkmus aims at writing rock songs with history and poetry in them. He has a gift for coining phrases that sound like points in a missing manifesto or like slogans for a movement yet to be named: “the South takes what the North delivers”; “Between here and there is better than either here or there”; “Praise the grammar police.” But no phrase really connects with the next, and Malkmus’s little orations turn cryptic or comic.

A few moments later, the topic, so to speak has switched to the falsetto croon of the lead singer of Rush–“What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy?” A band mate chimes in, “I know him, and he does!” Malkmus answers, “Well, you’re my fact-checking cuz.” The idea that such a song could have its own fact checking department in Pavement’s best joke since the Jason Priestley hoax.

Sometimes Malkmus is apparently seeking out words that can’t have appeared together in rock songs before. In “Type Slowly” he sings the phrases “excruciatingly gray,” “leather terrarium,” and “lady, I’m no futurist.” More often, his choices have musical logic behind them. He pins his lines to classic rhythms–for example, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” pattern, with the “Goode” falling between beats two and three. Malkmus invents ever odder combinations of words to fire up this old syncopation. “Shady Lane,” the catchiest song on the new album, has a gentle, hypnotic melody that keeps slipping off the beat and then falling back into line. Two Johnny B. Goode-like phrases that cause slippage are “emery board” and “worlds collide.” In another song Malkmus sings, “I vent my spleen at the Lord/He is abstract and bored”; this has the same rhythmic contour as, say, Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re an American band .” Even if the words don’t cohere, meanings emerge.

In other news, I was very disappointed by Jon Stewart’s guest-hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live last night. My expectations were very high – Stewart is normally one of my favorite comedians, but nearly every sketch last night was uninspired and mostly unfunny. It certainly wasn’t all Stewart’s fault – most of the cast seemed to be sleepwalking through this episode, and the writing was way below average in many skits. Please bear in mind this is SNL I’m talking about – below average can be really quite painful.

There were bits of quality – Tracy Morgan and Rachel Dratch were in a good skit playing themselves interviewing Jon Stewart, Tina Fey had a great one liner about not being a convincing Ashleigh Banfield in a sketch, and Stewart had a funny bit about coming off of the bench to fill in for Jimmy Fallon during Weekend Update – but that’s about it. It was nice to see Chris Parnell back in the cast after being temporarily let go, even though he wasn’t particularly funny in any of last night’s skits. Will Ferrell wasn’t in last night’s show either; which was very unfortunate, and a bad sign for what will happen to the show once he finally leaves it in the near future. There are a number of solid comedians in the cast (namely Fey, Dratch, Fallon, Morgan, Amy Poehler), but somehow when Ferrell isn’t around, it seems to falls apart.

My most sincere apologies to anyone who has been coming to this site in the past week hoping to find interesting content – for me, last week was characterized mainly by alternating between being rather busy and incredibly lazy.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to Woody Allen’s Standup Comic record, which has been bringing me a great deal of pleasure. It’s a shame Allen abandoned standup in 1968…he’s certainly one of the best standup comedians that I’ve ever heard, a real master of the form. Picking up this record was mainly inspired by a chance viewing of Annie Hall on cable last weekend, and remembering how much I enjoy Woody’s comedic work. It occured to me that an old friend of mine always spoke very highly of Woody’s standup, so I splurged and bought a used cd…

I feel a great need to see more of the man’s films, as I’ve only seen a small handful. Actually, I think that I need to see more films in general – I feel as though I’ve been neglected the cinema for far too long; like I should be a film buff by now, but I’ve been sidetracked. Anyone with good Woody Allen filmography advice, or film recommendation advice in general terms should be made aware of the fact that this blog now has a silly little guestbook in which you can feel free to leave me messages…

Hey, there’s a new Banjo-V song on Song Fight right now – It’s really spacey and strange, very dark and portentous. I like it.

From Boom Selection:

Freelance Hellraiser’s set on XFM the other day is available on Audiogalaxy as one long MP3…

Here’s the setlist:

The Strokes – “Hard To Explain” (Rough Trade)

Christina Aguilera – “Genie In A Bottle” (RCA)

Outkast – “So Fresh So Clean (Fatboy Slim Mix)” (Arista)

The Freelance Hellraiser – “Supersimon” (Strangelove)

Adam F + LL Cool J – “Greatest Of All Time” (EMI)

Deltron 3030 – “Positive Contact (Charlie Clouser Rmx Inst.)” (75 Ark)

Erick Sermon + Marvin Gaye – “Music” (NY.LA)

Ice T – “New Jack Hustler (David Morales Stress Mix)” (Warner)

Ol’ Dirty Bastard + Kelis – “Got Your Money” (No Info)

The Jackson Sisters – “I Believe In Miracles” (Tiger Lily)

Giorgio Moroder – “The Chase” (Casablanca)

Kelis – “Young Fresh & New (Timo Maas Mix)” (No Info)

My Mate Svante – “Push It Around The World” (unreleased)

Badmarsh & Shri – “Get Up” (Outcaste)

Stereo MC’s – “Deep Down & Dirty (Jon Carter Basement Mix)” (Island)

N’Sync – “Pop (Instrumental Mix)” (Jive)

Missy Elliot – “Lick Shots” (East West)

Depeche Mode – “Just Can’t Get Enough” (Mute)

D12 – “Purple Pills” (Interscope)

Shirley Bassey – “I’d Like To Hate Myself In The Morning (And Raise A Little Hell)” (EMI)

I can’t wait to hear this.

It’s been a while since something from the Modern Humorist made me laugh, but this piece works really well…David Hockney reveals the tricks of Modern Art:

Salvador Dali

With the image of a drooping, melted pocket watch, the Surrealist movement was born. But perhaps Dali was simply painting what he saw. If you’ve ever been to Spain in the summertime, you know it’s bloody hot. Hot enough to melt a pocket watch? Sure, I guess so, why not?

Jackson Pollock

You can’t look at the throbbing, vibrant abstracts of this troubled artist and not think, “My kid brother could do that.” Well, he did have a kid brother, Benjy Pollock. Is this proof he painted most of Jackson’s works? To my mind, yes. I am also investigating other artists’ kid brothers, including Skippy Kandinsky and Chu Chu Picasso.

.

David Hockney

I employ no tricks whatsoever. I merely paint pictures of swimming pools. And sell them to millionaires. Who own swimming pools.

Eddie Vedder has a mohawk now. He says he’s keeping it “until we stop killing people abroad”. Scary, unattractive, ill-advised.

Oh my – Atomix is knocking me out. I’ve been messing around with mixing and crossfading for the past few hours, and speed up the BPMs of several songs to wonderful effect. Oh yes.

Note: “Metronomic Underground” still isn’t quite right.

Wishlist:

I’d like an MP3/cd copy of “Something We’ve Got” by The Minx. Apparently, this is nigh-on impossible to come by, and was only ever released as a 45… It was played on this past Friday’s Downtown Soulville on WFMU, and it is pure brilliance – I absolutely must play this song when I DJ again. It’s got this fantastic bassline, and all these girls chanting things like “what I’ve got/ I’ve got a lot/ I’ve got something thaaaat’s redddddd hot!“.

I’d also like a triple-time studio recording of Stereolab performing “Metronomic Underground”. This probably doesn’t exist, but it should.

Oh wow – I had so much fun last night. I’m very proud, I was able to keep a solid intense dancefloor for nearly four hours with only a small handful of errors/floor clearers. I went on last, there were two other DJs who did brief sets between 11 and 1:30 – they weren’t very good, honestly. They played mostly downbeat stuff, but I guess that was okay cos people were just arriving. By the time I went on, there was a lot of people. And yes, I am so incredibly nerdy that I kept a running log of what I played. I’m a setlist junkie, and I knew that I’d want to refer back to it. Here it is:

Michael Jackson Vs. Q-Tip/ Crossover “Extensive Care”/ Le Tigre “Deceptacon”/ Lupine Howl “Vaporizor”/ George Michael Vs. Missy Elliott/ The Beatles Vs. DMX/ Nirvana Vs. Destiny’s Child/ Gold Chains “Rock The Parti” (floor clearer – aborted halfway. I wanted to cry.)/ The Strokes Vs. Christina Aguilera/ D-12 Vs. Depeche Mode/ Peaches “Lovertits”/ Beasties Vs. Britney (Crazy/Body Movin)/ Prince Vs. Daft Punk/ Gorillaz “19-2000 (soulchild remix)”/ Michael Jackson “Smooth Criminal” vs. Kylie/ Grandmaster Flash Vs. Blackstreet/ Busta Rhymes Vs. Missy Vs. Ol Dirty Bastard/ Eminem Vs. Britney/ Cylob “Rewind (DMX Krew remix)”/ Madonna Vs. Young MC/ Missy Vs. O’Jays Vs. Happy Mondays/ Gonzales “Take Me To Broadway”/ Lynnfield Pioneers “Time To Get Dumb”/ Ol Dirty Bastard Vs. Will Smith/ Chicks On Speed “For All The Boys In The World” (aborted halfway)/ Wilbur Bascomb and the Zodiac “Just A Groove In G”/ ESG “My Love For You”/ Lee Rogers “I Want You To Have Everything”/ Sugar Pie Desanto “Go Go Power”/ Billy Hambric “She Said Goodbye”/ Spanky Wilson “The Sunshine Of Your Love”/ Eddie Bo “Check Your Bucket”/ Tobi Lark “Challenge My Love”/ Fun Company “Zambezi”/ Ike and Tina Turner “Bold Soul Sister”/ Johnny Williams “My Baby’s Good”/ James Brown “There Was A Time”/ Stevie Wonder “I Was Made To Love Her”/ Syl Johnson “Dresses Too Short”/ Kim Weston “Rock Me A Little While”/ Otis Redding “Love Man”/ Gloria Jones “Tainted Love”/ The Supremes “Where Did Our Love Go?”/ The Vibrettes “Humpty Dump”/ Caesar Frazier “Funk It Up” The Esquires “Get On Up”/ Rufus Thomas “Can Your Monkey Do The Dog?”/ Mike Viner’s Incredible Bongo Band “Apache”/ Ronn Feaster “Don’t Laugh In My Face and Steal My Man”/ Jay-Z “I Just Want To Love You”/ Outkast “So Fresh, So Clean”/ Wu-Tang Clan “Gravel Pit”/ Beasties Vs. Britney (Intergalactic/One More Time)/ Loose Joints “Is It All Over My Face?”/ The Kingsmen “Louie Louie”/ Detroit Cobras “Village of Love”/ Tom Tom Club “Genius Of Love”/ The Slits “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”/ The B-52’s “Rock Lobster”/ Clinic “The Equaliser”/ Primal Scream “Shoot Speed Kill Light”

I’d actually been daydreaming about ending a DJ set with “Shoot Speed Kill Light” all week, it was nice to get it out of my system. I feel great right now – it was such a satisfying night. I danced a bit too, which was great. I’ll probably be doing another party like this within the next month or two, so I’ve got a lot of ideas on how to improve everything about this. Oh, and I had no idea that “Deceptacon” would cause the dancefloor explosion that it did… I was actually concerned that it could be a floor clearer – hm. I’m still a bit sad that Gold Chains went over so very poorly. That really let me down.

I shall be DJing a party tonight – I’m obviously very excited about this. I’m figuring out what MP3s I’ll be bringing to DJ live computer-style… Lord knows there will a be a ton of bootleg mixes in my set tonight…and I shall be so bold to drop in “Rock The Parti” by Gold Chains. Oh yes.

I am listening to a cdr of ‘greatest hits’ by Pavement right now. When I made it, I was trying to make the best greatest hits compilation that could be made on one cd – all of the singles, popular tracks, and live favorites. It came out like this:

Box Elder/ Debris Slide/ Summer Babe/ Trigger Cut/ Here/ In The Mouth A Desert/ Frontwards/ Cut Yr Hair/ Gold Soundz/ Range Life/ Unfair/ Rattled By La Rush/ Father To A Sister of Thought/ Kennel District/ Grounded/ Give It A Day/ Painted Soldiers/ Stereo/ Shady Lane/ Date With IKEA/ Carrot Rope/ Spit On A Stranger/ Major Leagues/ The Hexx

Anyway, I stopped the flow of the cd and played “Unfair” several times in a row. I’m amazed by the fact that no matter how many times I hear this song, it still has that rush of sunny day excitement that it had for me the first time I ever heard it, when I was 14 years old… it just never gets old. From the verses about how “the south takes what the north delivers” to the chorus of “swinging nunchucks like you just don’t care” to the bridge…ah, and then the screaming explosion of “Yr my neighbor! You don’t need favors! Cos yr my neighbor! I don’t need favors, you Bakersfield trash!” Yes. This is what it’s all about, everyone. This is my rock and roll music.

See? Dreams can come true….

From BobandDavid.com:

Yes!

I’ve been wondering if I am the only person who has been noticing the Christian lyrical themes in Clinic’s new record Walking With Thee. Now, nevermind that the title very obviously refers to God (or that the title track was originally titled “The Nuns”)… let’s just note some of the decipherable lyrics that pop up throughout the LP…

“bless them on their sins and all go home” – refrain from “Mr. Moonlight”

“snug as bugs inside your love, come into our room/ now oh now the winter glows/ it’s wonderful, no, it’s wonderful with you” – from “Come Into Our Room” – it’s very vague, but it seems like an invocation of the Holy Spirit or Jesus Christ…

“I believe in harmony/ I believe in Christmas eve/ free for all your happiness/ and no one’s living on their wits/ one so kind and one so wise/ one so kind throughout your life/ fill yourself with dreams/ come fill yourself with dreams” – “Harmony”

“sunshine boy, the endless joy…/and Christ, our Christ/ all in their rows/ Christ, they’re in their rows/ come and watch and lap it up/ Christ, they’re in their rows/ inward and outward, come our love/ inward and outward, now it’s safe and warm/ and wonderful/ you’re all made up for the wars…/some don’t master, master come come again” – “For The Wars”

That last one is so odd – for most of the time I knew this song, I thought of ‘you’re all made up for the wars’ to be referring to, well, make-up and nice clothing. But it seems to be saying that Jesus Christ and possibly by extension other religious figures to be ‘made up for the wars’, ie purely fictional excuses for violence. All of these lyrics, all of this music, this band in general – it’s all so vague and mysterious, and that’s part of why it’s so great. I don’t know quite what to make of the lyrics that can be understood on this record. It can sound and feel very spiritual and religious, but I can’t really draw any conclusions on how it relates to Christianity, though it’s clearly a big part of the album. I don’t know if I really want to know…

I’ll say this: if anyone, even Malkmus, puts out a record better than Walking With Thee this year, it will be quite an achievement.

Oh, and Jenny completely rocks.

Alright… I don’t know who the girl who sings “Extensive Care” by Crossover is , but this woman – she has the sexiest voice in the world, I am sure of this.

I can’t even describe why it is so sexy – it’s something in her intonation, her annunciation, her tonality, the way she sounds alternately bored, flirtatious, confident, silly, and as though she’s trying to change someone’s mind about something or other. She’s so convincing – she must be totally unstoppable in real life. …and when she sorta giggles when she says the line “…and tickled pink” – oh man! You just can’t get cuter than that.

I want a girlfriend who is exactly like this girl’s voice, or at least has a voice like hers. Please?

Ah, a nice day.

I bought a whole bunch of comics – I’ll comment on them a bit later, probably tomorrow. Several of them haven’t been read yet… Quite a diverse batch this week, as nearly all of my geeky superhero comics came out (Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, Mark Millar’s Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates) plus I picked up a Spider-Man comic that Darwyn Cooke wrote and drew, just cos I love Darwyn Cooke.

I also picked up My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable because I loved …Filing Technique and Get Yur War On so much – I read a bit of it on the train ride home, and it’s funny, but not quite as good as those two. Which is fine, cos this came first, and the fact that the newer stuff better is a good sign for David Rees’ development as a fucking genius.

My package from Drawn & Quarterly arrived today too – I Never Liked You by Chester Brown, Clyde Fans pt 1 by Seth, Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight by James Sturm, and an issue of Nowhere by Debbie Drechler – all look quite good, but I haven’t cracked any of them open just yet.

Mmmm – of course, cos they are free, I got the new issues of The Onion, Village Voice, and Shout. Well, I’d probably buy The Onion print edition if it wasn’t free, just cos I like it so much, but this issue doesn’t really have anything particularly great in it.

My baby, she’s got baby eyes, my baby, she’s got those baby eyes…

I’ve been listening to “Baby Eyes” by Pyramids of Giza on repeat for about 15 minutes now – meaning, I’ve listened to it about eleven times and counting. It’s just so mesmerizing – the chanted hook, mixed with the staccato verses, the odd churning guitars which make me feel a bit seasick…. wow. Of course, this is by the same people who gave us the little slice of pop genius that is “Experimental Fashion” by Banjo-V….

These guys are so fantastic – they need to get famous, and quick. As it is, it’s a bit like having my own personal miniature Pavement circa Westing…

Oooh! A new Tom Scharpling compilation cd is being released…

from the site:

Culled from broadcasts of THE BEST SHOW ON WFMU (91.1 FM Jersey City, NJ), CHAIN FIGHTS, BEER BUSTS AND SERVICE WITH A GRIN shows BEST SHOW host Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster –the man on the other end of the phone for these “interviews”– at their outrageous best.

The Scharpling/Healy confrontation heats up and takes a very distressing turn.