More Demos (now from Poughkeepsie)

That's right. Except these are crisper, less patchoul-banter-to-a-tune. Two by Sam and two by me. Part of a late-announced, continued series of songs under the Standard Toilet Seat media empire.

"Clap Your Hands"
"Martha"
"Chores"
"Michael Herr's Dispatches"

But unfortunately, as "You Send It" files, they'll only be up for a week, at least til we find a permament website for stashing. Tally-ho!

Back to it

By some hour tomorrow, it will be back to books and handouts and so long to lounging in Boston and cavorting around Chicago, and the patchouli banter and songs about this blog that happened then and there. But no, banter and blog-songs will keep on in the 'Keep, so I'm fibbing.

I've been wrapping up these days camped out in uptown Manhattan, in fact. The Robert Rauschenberg Combines show at the Met was a mess of sorts - that is the point, maybe, it's Raushenberg - but it was the wrong kind of mess. Too many crazy paintings cramped together on white walls in a fancy museum. Rather see a fraction of them, compared to Schwitters' collages or 1910s papiers collages, in a dingy space somewhere. Also, big show at the Wowhaus on Sat. featuring ...Ship (formerly Comradeship), Grain Riot, and the debut of Sudden Heart Attack! All for now. Tally-ho and more banter later on the scope of daft culture.

"Just tell me you love me, pussy"

So ended the vacuous thrill-ride that was Stealth. Seriously. That was the last line, said by Lt. Kate Wade (Jessica Biel) to Lt. Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas) below the poopdeck of their Star-Destroyer. OK, it was an aircraft carrier, but with stealth robot fighter jets that run on quatum-nuclear-muffin-gibberish engines, and big explosions, you might not be wrong thinking this was trying to be Star Wars. Maybe. Except for the racial stereotypes. Wait, no, remember Lando, Billy Dee Williams' crass blackman character? OK, so maybe Stealth was different from Star Wars in how it was mostly boring, with action scenes and a plot and script as bad as Punisher. Scene: Kate studies up on the Stealth robot plane under a closeline of bras in her room while Ben Gannon blasts emo and reads a flight manuel, and Henry (Foxx) spins a B-ball on his finger, flashes a lamp in his face and pretends he's Lebron James, while reading specs on his computer. Women, hambone dudes who like Nu-Metal and emo, and black men - damn hollywood is good.

Besides those offenses, Stealth was mostly dull. The fake-Top Gunners hunts terrorists - we don't know who they are, where they're from, or what they're doing - they're just terrorists, and leaders from three cells are meeting right now in Rangoon, so go blow up Rangoon, team. That's basically the movie, leading up to when the once-enemy robot plane flies into a North Korean helicopter, which allows Kate and Ben to escape Kim Jong Il's unfriendly country and finally have sex. Well, first Ben has to tell Kate, "You and me, we're two. And two, two's a prime number" (you know, let's get in my bunk - 2: prime number?). Of course, three is a prime number too, so Kate couldn't been like "Ben, that cheesedick line doesn't work, because before Henry flew into a mountainside, we were also a prime number." Instead, she just delivers the title of this post.

The world is saved, they escape to a beach, presumably, and then go on blowing up terrorists around the world, from Tajikistan to North Korea. Meanwhile, Sam and I go to bed, disappointed that this truly awful movie failed to wow us with nonstop explosions and some blockbuster sugar. I mean, the biggest explosion was some dumb hangar in Alaska. What, had Stealth's directors not seen Independence Day? Where are the sights and digital cities blowing up?

More Oak Park Demos (lil' ones)

As promised, we deliver more demos from the streets of Oak Park, or, the third floor of Sam's house. Odes to this blog that ape some tunes and melodies you might know. Tally-ho!
Clap Your Dick
Death of an Heir of Seats
Sam's Six Likes
Standard Toilet Weez

Oak Park demos

Presenting the first in our maybe-continuing Oak Park demos series: Freddy Deknatel's "Notes on a Bar"! Enjoy the best!

The greatest band in the whole world

Well, not really, but they were #11 on my year-end list. And I'm in them! Pansy Snowflake and the Lilypads, as I said, are "cutesy VU/Mag Fields fakers," and those are just a few of the bands they steal from on their first song! I also recommend "I'm In Love With You," the quasi-template for Me Naked, probably Vassar's best band not on Lovepump.

Anyway. Freddy and I have been tearing shit up all around Chicago. The Art Institute, a coffee shop in Wicker Park, Anne's father's mostly empty model train station ... who knows where we'll go next? Maybe to Match Point.

Tip the scales

Into the new year we go, and I'm into new things. in some order they are:

Seeing "Syriana" and agreeing with Stylus Sam that it was a disappointment, not the least because of the stock mosque chant soundtrack, that is the Orientalist scores Hollywood thinks best set-up shots of Beirut, Riyadh, Tehran, wherever. In a shell, the oilman/big business side of the movie was too complex, too confusing; the geography/politics/terrorism/Islam side of the film was too simplistic. Oh, also, the aping of Traffic was poorly executed and obvious, and the numerous characters and stories vaguely intersected, sometimes with explanation, though mostly without them.

Listening to records of the year and refiguring a list that surely includes The National near the top. "Alligator" gets better with every listen, especially on a screaming bus ride in the rain to Boston, when beads of water soak the window by my Fung Wah Bus seat. Also, on records of the year: I have a newer appreciation for "I'm Wide Awake It's Morning" after spending the last week listening for the first time to "Fevers & Mirrors." Yes, yes, Sam hates Conor's push-to-the-front vocals, which are beyond pained/deliberate/shrill on this old record, though there are some emo gems. Oberst's "Fevers" to "Morning" progress (i.e. reigning in the hollow croons while writing tight, literate folk songs) is like George Bush's own progess in public oration and straight-talk these days. That's right: both are still damn pained in how they deliver their lines, but if you compare Conor's singing and Dubya's speaking in '05 with the way the indie waif crooned and the president stumbled in '00, well shit, man, all the public speaking drills I did in boys school take on new, "sound" appreciation.

Watching shoddy Silver Jews clips on the internet, namely Berman playing New Orleans in concert and singing Rebel Jew with a beer in a parking lot.

Oh, also, playing with my new cream Telecaster and finishing up my tape, to be the third release (or fourth if David finishes his CD before I finish my first tape) for Stovetop Records. Title et al coming soon.

And, committing to some mode of daily, or nearly daily, posting on the 'Seat.

And, last, gearing up for skyscrapers, Lake Michigan, and Sam driving me around America's second city.

Can't you see I'm trying

All right, faithful Seat readers. Freddy and David, and maybe Jake, here's a post on another blog -- Stylus Magazine's! -- about this Strokes show I went to on Tuesday. Thank God it's a blog post and not a feature, though, because it's really wordy. I mean, I guess that's sort of what I do when I write music stuff. But whatever.

To faithful Seat readers: who writes concise music reviews? Post in our flourishing comments section with your answers!