Standard Toilet Seat

Let's Get Musseled

2006-08-23T08:15:00.000-04:00

Did you know that mussels taste good? If not, maybe charming young Frenchmen, such simple sophisticates, will convince you. Still not? Pair them with promo-copy for one American restaurant and the following money quote, and how can you not believe the Times?

“I’ll tell you who ate mussels in America 25 years ago,” said Paul Brayton, a Maine-based expert in shellfish aquaculture. “In a pizza joint in Jersey, if your pizza was taking too long, they used to send out half a dozen mussels on the half shell."

Yes. And some people in America even eat mussels at the dinner table, New Bedford-style, with chorizo, cooked in a big red steaming pot, over pasta. But telling the Times that would throw off their penchant for breaking news trends (pysch!). That, and their willingness to print writers while they're on vacation, hamming it up on French Nantucket, learning the proper way to squat for a shit.

Note: Judy's on the Seat now.

Remember when we sweat on Coney Island, Pt. 2 (featuring Art Brut)

2006-08-03T15:48:00.000-04:00

Follow the page down, or just click here to jump to the Seat's previous coverage of now-old-news Siren Fest. Do we care that this event happened weeks ago? No. Did I have to wait for film to develop, busy myself with other things, and then scan glossy prints? Yes. But, really, it's all for this. Jonathan Richman sang about "Israel's arid plains" once, and here's Eddie Argos, singing a song "to make Israel and Palestine get along." Need I say more, folks?

And then Eddie Argos gets tired, and talks with more detail about Emily Kane.

Then he jumps into the crowd.

And then I'm face to face with Eddie. Sam's helping him rock out, but I can't snap a decent photo.

And, for good measure, the jaded Stylus reviewer himself, pissed off that I won't go with to see Scissor Sisters.

Hey, remember when we sweat on Coney Island?

2006-08-03T15:11:00.000-04:00

Here we have the Rogers Sisters, with emphasis on bassist Miyuki Furtado, whom Sam and I recently passed one quiet night last week in Brooklyn.

Tapes 'N Tapes was endearing, and boring. But Man Man, on the other hand...

...was crafty kitchen sink, acid-face mayhem. I don't think their straight. In fact, I think they'd get along well with hippie Ernie.

Freshening the Seat

2006-07-18T12:50:00.000-04:00

It has been a while, to be sure, what with a semester fling with Judy and a summer wrapped up in the war. But the Standard Toilet Seat is due for a freshening-up, with shiny new content, from musings on NYC fools ("do you want me to tell you about my art") to the soon-posted Siren Music Festival photo extravaganza (thanks to Stylus Magazine, Sam and I were in the press pit last Saturday, and I was snapping away with my film camera, hence the current delay in uploading the hot shots of Art Brut, et al).

Also, as we did here during Freedom Spring, the Seat will resume its role as mouthpiece/ personal promoter of the Stovetop Records kids! Sam and I, plus Matt from the Wailing Wall, have an upcoming show at Sine-E on August 8th (!!!). It'll be the debut of the First Wives Club.

(no good lyrics to quote here)

2006-05-25T12:39:00.000-04:00

Way cuter than Razorlight

While those damn kids over at the Judy try their damned best to sink the Kristof bitch who may have bit Gourevitch in her essay, the Seat brings you something lighter: a review!

Just like the last blurb, I'm rubbing shoulders with Scott McKeating, always and everywhere. Except you don't get any free mp3s this time, because I deleted that shit from my computer.

Guillemots
From The Cliffs EP
Fantastic Plastic 2006

If you’re not big on strong songwriting, you’ll like this kitchen sink stuff. But don’t be surprised when Guillemots—fat birds that can fly and swim—make like tame bloated rockers, dabbling in creaky orchestras and the nine-minute saccharine organ vamp. “Trains to Brazil,” for one, is thoroughly underwhelming for a calling card single, an overemotive vocal married to an arbitrarily constructed jaunt. This English foursome is no more than the heir apparent to The Beta Band, and, save a timid piano coda (“My Chosen One”), this EP is no more than jam seshes and woozy melodies.
[Sam Bloch]

I mean, if you're really curious, check the MySpace. Kinda like what Tim Burgess said at the Charlatans show yesterday.

The truth in searching is not having found

2006-05-10T23:01:00.000-04:00

Left-handed people have an advantage in fighting without weapons, because of the "surprise" factor. This fact is well known to boxers and was employed to world-record effect on Nov. 4th 1947 when Mike Collins, a natural left-hander, emerged from his corner in a right-handed stance before suddenly shifting left and delivering the fight's first and last punch, knocking out opponent Pat Brownson in 4 seconds.

Hey, Stylus Magazine, guess who's back! Sure, you ain't missed me much-- what with my last contributions as a kid set loose in a candy shop-cum-couple of interviews-- but thanks our boy David, who introduced me to Mr. Longstreth, now I'm taking Portland's finest to the big leagues. To run in a week or so, but without all these free songs (though only for a week) and rad hypertext links. Oh, the wonders of the internet-- helping to make music writing the dinosaur that it truly is.

The Dirty Projectors
New Attitude EP
Marriage Records 2006

Instead of the majestic wail at the end of The Getty Address—femme, meditated, scythed, multitracked—Dave Longstreth picks up the pace and opens this record with his single caterwaul, a clarity further expanded by—surprise!—a fluid backing band. Admittedly, Longstreth stills meddles with the collage shit that makes Scott Herren want to call it quits, but it’s compounded with singer-songwriter zen. So we've got drums with momentum, for example, and a near-corporeal guitar twang that’s way more than a motif from Address’ “I Will Truck.” And when Longstreth yells “precious reciprocity!” on live track “Two Young Sheeps," his eight-minute take on Graceland, the audience claps and yells right back. All of which is funny, of course, because even though dirty projectors show us obscured images, this batch is pretty clear.

Edit: rubbing shoulders with Scott McKeating, always and everywhere.

The Terror of the Music Writers' Racial Furor

2006-05-10T15:24:00.001-04:00

On Slate, John Cook's buttoned-up, though hardly backed-up riff of a few old blog posts by Sasha Frere-Jones and Jessica Hopper begs two question: can a manifesto (hating rap=hating black) really be gleaned from a few fiery posts by successively influential music writers; and either way, fuck Pitchfork for making music writing the money ticket in recent years. Stick to crackpot adjectives and me-first absolute phrases; leave the social posturing to politicians and athletes.

Still - and not to wax cracker here - Hopper's claim against the Mag Fields "whiteness" is as crass as her, and SFJ's, own projection that Merritt's pooh-poohing of Beyonce, Prince, and others means he hates black people - at least, if either one was ever even saying that.

If SFJ's oft-writerly The New Yorker criticism (his wistful Arctic Monkeys' splurge aside) pumps tunes unfamiliar, let alone unappealing, does that mean I hate Houston? I hope not. The 'Stros do have the Rocket. Better question: do I resent Kanye because I don't own Late Registration, or any rap records released since 2001? However flimsy Cook's indictment of SFJ & Hopper is (the pickings are pretty slim from both blogs' archives), he does expose their suggestions of security, which seek to assure a Talk-O'-Towny readership that at least they're not as white as Stephin Merritt because they read Sasha.

SFJ opened up the field today on his blog, asking some wider questions, which while thoughtfully New Yorker, are pretty frivolous. It's only pop music after all, right?

Maybe not: that I love Pavement does say something about my choice to be a slacker - I mean, SM and Spiral Stairs speak to my liberal-arts college procrastination, right? Maybe they are social actors in my quite-white life, which currently isn't "terrified that entertainment might be tainted by the problems of the social sphere that entertainment is so often employed to block out." I only find that terror in my prep school memories of rich, padded Young Republicans blasting DMX in their newly-leased cars. Meanwhile, I listen to Pavement, Stephin Merritt, and, no offense, not Kanye.

The News

2006-04-13T22:24:00.001-04:00

If you're ever sitting idly, perhaps eating a poorly wrapped burrito, trying to do anything but what it is that you have to do, delve into Ananova, a British news site ("the home of breaking news") that will surely skirt any inklings of "in order to make myself feel better, I'm going to feel sorry for myself. Damn this sour cream is stingy." Example: in a summer internship at Maxim last year, which Sam will be undertaking this summer, I used Ananova extensively for assigned research on the kinds of quirky, stupid shit that fill Maxim's last page. I learned in Qatar that month (this was July), a camel race had been held, except not any old camel race. Instead of amazingly petite Spanish (or I suppose in this case, Qatari) men, robots would ride the hump to the finish-line glory. Yes, robots. As jockeys. Riding the camels. This was the first time any such event had been staged. Since, I have found that this story was covered by far more respected outlets, but still...I read it on Ananova first.

In that vein, two delights just found tonight:

Pips might taste better microwaved, but Berliner Karl-Friedrich Lentze is pissed - he's suing Watership Down's sellout relative because chocolate makes you fat, and because said relative is "sadistic...unscrupulous." Better yet, some crackpot Berlin lawyer agrees with him.

Or even better still, and Stovetops listen up, it seems a record deal is only a few depressing, private basement webcam performances away. I'm not saying this holds a candle to Freedom Spring, but if Paul McCartney gives you some vague advice, the obvious course is to run with it and fire up the webcam, right?

the high and mighty

2006-04-10T15:27:00.000-04:00

How noble of the Times to stay above the storm - dubbed payola six - currently bearing down on their much cheaper newsstand neighbors by blithely reporting on it! Not to hate too much on the Ol' Gray Lady - i'll now do so here - but the Times coverage of payola six/NYP/NYDN duel right now reeks of breakfast newsflashes to out-of-touch, Fairfield Hoighty-Toights. "Dear, have you seen this section yet? It appears there's some sort of ruckus between the two tabloids the gardeners are always reading during their lunch break. Hmm, how entertaining."

Though, for the sake of fairness, I have to admit I hadn't yet heard the one about the Daily News breaking the story on the Post's circulation scam. Apparently, they said some 10,000 papers were bound for China. What they really meant was a recycling plant in Greenpoint. Nor was I aware that dandy Jared Paul Stern used to be a Phishhead. The dude went to BENNIGTON! And look at him now! Under the bright lights of the FBI! With an edgy, prep sensibilty, even! (Note: Jared Paul Stern's online apparel looks so budget, so hoaky, one has to wonder if it's just a front for the transcontinental coke ring this dandy's running on Ron Perelman and Harvey Weinstein's dime.)

There's a lot more to comment on this story, though what I find most intriguing are the now-daily Times buzzupdates on payola six, including what's above: a flashy, New York-magazinish floating head graphic that, somehow, connects Tracy Morgan with Hil, Bill, and Leo's former flame. Damn, Arthur, the troops are good.

and strike two...

2006-04-04T07:55:00.000-04:00

Slash oh fucking Jesus and Semadar chain, not again. As if javagerism weren't bad enough, "hipster synagogues"? Where in Yentl's name has arthur retardzberger been finding these assholes?

BUSTED.

2006-04-03T17:57:00.000-04:00

NERD ALERT AT NYT.COM PART MCXVII...

Fess up--which one of The Stovetops has been writing for the times under the pseudonym "Michael Walker," and who decided to grace the yup-yup/brown-grad world with this backstage pass? Or should we just thank M.W. for giving us yet another reason to wish we'd made it to the hipster hannukah?

I always knew NYU was for lamers

2006-03-28T11:09:00.000-05:00

Dudes! Kenny's got the beer!

... and now Gawker's only confirmed my suspicions! I mean, here at Vassar, we're way cooler than NYU kids. Like, we don't just go to our school because it's in New York or to snag hooknasties in bar bathrooms. We go here for the academics, and the many on-campus entertainment options, like the Mug, a dance club underneath a cafeteria, and the proximity to New York.

And, uh, the ratio! Which, as my dad has been telling people for years -- and as the two bros at the top know -- is no different from NYU:

These guys were with us all night and talked a good game of how easy it is to hook up. “Dude, NYU is the best college for guys. 60/40 girl/guy ratio and 30 percent of the guys are gay. Do the math.” Hold on to your abacus, fellas. The interlocking chug of brotherhood solves another equation. Better known as the “the null set."

If only I could find that sweet article Spin printed a few years ago about all the poonani us Vassar bros get.

tour update

2006-03-15T02:16:00.000-05:00

yeah it's been kicking ass, oh man, podcast on mit radio! click on the 3/14 show to get david, sam, and freddy playing music together! as heard by most of massachusetts. cool.

(16:20) clap your hands / (21:09) notes on a bar / (39:55) go back to new haven / (46:55) watches / (1:02:20) silk screened shirt / (1:12:40) two notes / (1:27:00) we're electric / (1:37:50) all the umbrellas in london / (1:50:15) i love the x-men

tour's great, we'll be back soon with the pictures stovetop doesn't want you to see!

Ye Olde Breukelen Rock Hall

2006-03-09T01:46:00.000-05:00

this is Pratt Institute, where we'll be playing this Friday, in the basement of Pantas Hall. the Swedish Jet-Blue Freedom Rider will take us down, and on Saturday we haul up to New Hampshire, until turning back the following day for Boston, all culminating in the just confirmed March 16th opening slot for Get Him Eat Him at AS220, Providence, RI. there the Stovetop Records catalogue will merge as the The Stovetops, and we'll be basting like a turducken.

Mum, why do you kiss floozies?

2006-03-07T19:08:00.000-05:00

Not to dig up old news like a washed-up Voice writer in his grandmother's rent-controlled walk-up, but it seems Madonna's make-out with Britney had some resonance in the mommy pop star's home. Do you think Rocco asks daddy why the chaps at school make fun of his "Snatch" backpack?

I bet you go to more classes than not

2006-03-06T12:44:00.000-05:00

Direct from the Times, the Gotti trial! With real, live teenagers!

The best part:

John J. Gotti's oldest granddaughter, Victoria Gotti Albano, 18, arrived at the courthouse, saying, "We always stick together." Wearing a large necklace spelling out the word "princess," which she said her grandfather had given her, she sat between her mother, Angel, and grandmother for the rest of the week. Ms. Albano, a freshman at U.C.L.A., [STS note: not on the FB] said she wanted to become a lawyer to avenge the wrongs she said the government had inflicted on her family. Her grandmother volunteered that the teenager's role model was Ron Kuby, a civil rights lawyer.

You know what he's saying, right? "I survived a Mafia hit."

I think the piece is about burgeoning feminism within the Mafia thanks to reality TV, but whatever, you know that bitch was so blazed!!! One time I had to go to court, too! But that's another post.

Hey Ladies

2006-03-06T08:32:00.000-05:00

CHECK OUT THE STOVETOP TOUR BUS! and fellas, if you're taking the subway to the suburbs when these ballers drive by, you have permission to throw a fatty molotov: them bros got mad insurance for their vocal chords, fingers and hips, plus your ex-girlfriends are DEFINITELY inside. (albeit obscured by the tinted windows detailed in platinum--eat your heart out, partridge family and mies van der rohe.)

PS: all of that was just a transcript of sam blochs increasingly recurrent wet dream. the car is real, and they will be using it as their tour bus (kudos, Ginny!), but the only action that anyone will be getting on the inside is freddy's regurgitation of thomas payne. and maybe sometimes episode 4,378 of the simpsons.

oh wait

2006-03-03T18:19:00.000-05:00

The Arctic Monkeys' album debuted at #28 on the US charts with 32,733 sold. 1/10th of the UK first week sales.

I'm gonna go listen to Deerhoof in honor of our fallen bro, though. And think about Matt LeMay's ass rocking out in front of me at Intonation.

Unfortunately for Pitchfork, Slygate (I hope it gets that honorary suffix!) dropped the same day they announced the first acts of their Intonation redux (this time it's actually called Pitchfork Music Fest). So no one gives a shit, not even because The National is the most interesting act.

Bullshit Happens

2006-03-03T17:03:00.000-05:00

was one of Nick Sylvester's Village Voice headlines. Now the dude is sincerely fucked. After admitting to fabricating part of a cover story for the once-reputable and now quite-failing liberal newsmag, he's been suspended and probably ruined forever. Or for the time being. He's 24.

Punch in "Sylvester" on Gawker, first. Read about the new management and how Sylvester wrote a fake lede in an article about a Neil Strauss book. Then start here.

In addition to the much-maligned Voice story -- which has been removed from the Voice website (though it's on newsstands so check it while you can!) but is nicely summarized by Ben Pale Wire -- the AP has jumped on an article he wrote for an August Voice education supplement, calling him on his major bullshit, there, too.

But some of the guys at I Love Music (wade through if you like!) are trying to defend their fallen brother, if you can believe it, on the grounds that anyone familiar with his writing style should know that he's prone to hyperpole and glib off-the-cuff 'tude (an exaggerated version of us) like some hyper-Thompson or Wolfe quasi-fiction. Someone there suggested that he's in the vein of classic gonzo journalism, the fiction-riddled pieces that ran back in the day whose point was moral, not truth. Uh huh.

His admittedly hilarious blog Riff Central, which ran fake interviews with The Arcade Fire and The Game, I guess, is where he ought to be confined to, former Harvard Lampoon editor that he is. Naw, that's harsh. I can't say I'm happy to see his ass canned at Pitchfork, where he's just been taken off the masthead (and a mere suspension at the Voice, no less!), but I can't tell you how many times Ferd and I have wanted one of these Look At Me, Not The Music writers, rife within the pages of Sylvester's periodicals as well as Spin (talk about a tailspin! but more on that, later, when I present my "the demise of the music writer" post), Chris Ott's Perfect Sound Forever, my beloved alma mater Stylus Magazine, to an extent, and countless other webzines, to get their big.

Sylvester's one divisive dude. On one hand, it's pretty hard to refute his knack for pioneering the second wave of "I write like I'm too busy for this shit" (whose repercussions are much at hand at the Voice and, obviously, at Pitchfork). And check our sidebar links for Riff Raff, his own Voice blog that gets mad props from this little Seat here. But even the slightest glance will prove his ever-leaning tendencies towards a growing confidence in his apparent logorrhea (here, pick your favorite review!) and the absurd. This is the guy who got booed offstage for reading The New Yorker at The Plug Awards instead of introducing the album of the year award. And though former Pitchfork god Brent DiCrescenzo vouches for his character, much like the current acting ed in chief at the Voice, he still lambasts his lack "of syntax whatsoever, approaches writing like it's a Pollock, and spews adjectives he picks up on East Side streets into an obtuse approximation of 'sentences.'"

So is he swelling with his own hubris? He can't be an idiot (he went to Harvard, geez!) and any journalist, fake or not, knows you don't lie. Even the kids at our own shit rag know that. So are these Gawker exclusives for real? Did he really not know that this was front page business, not a jokey riff (no pun intended!) deep in the Voice music section? I dunno, men. But frankly, no matter how many loving anecdotes I'm going to get from kids who went to Harvard with him, toured with Harvard with him, or worked at the Voice with him, I'll still be dubious. Moral of the story? Fuck this guy's panache. Rent All The President's Men.

Much, much respect for the folks at the aforelinked Sound Opinions Message Board and ILM, the latter a major hub of know-their-shit music writers. And peruse Gawker for other stories about some fundamentally wack shit he's pulled, proving himself to be writer first, journo second.

Freedom Spring update

2006-03-02T10:21:00.000-05:00

All right, apologies for the lack of posts since the L'Ween KO. But here's a tour update!

3/10: Brooklyn, NY - Pratt Institute
3/11: Dover, NH - University of New Hampshire
3/12-14: Boston, MA - help us find a venue! currently lined up: Freddy's house, Freddy's car
3/15: Providence, RI - Get Him Eat Him House (maybe?)
3/16: Providence, RI - AS220 (opening for GHEM - maybe?)

The shit goes down a week from tomorrow! Are you psyched?

The Simpsons vs. Enumerated Rights

2006-03-01T12:56:00.000-05:00

It seems I was fortunate to be riding the school bus in 7th grade, quoting Moe Szyslak, waiting to sit down for Civics class. But seriously, find me a passage in the Constitution as rich as Moe's killing of the original Alfalfa, and maybe then the white-wigs will win back some much-needed popular appeal:

Barney: Whoa! You mean, you were one of the original Little Rascals?
Moe: Yeah.
Homer: Which one were you? The ugly one?
[Moe glares]
Were you the ugly one?
Moe: No, I was the tough kid, Smelly. My shtick was looking into an
exhaust pipe and getting a faceful of soot. Nobody could do
that better than me. Of course, it was kind of hard to think of
reasons for me to look in that exhaust pipe every time, but,
you know -- we had good writers. William Faulkner can write an exhaust pipe gag that would really make you think.
Barney: If you were such a big shot, why aren't you still making
movies? Moe? Moe!
[Moe thinks back to an episode where the Little Rascals are
playing marbles]
[he flicks one away; it bounces into an exhaust pipe]
Moe: Oh, no! My favorite aggie!
[Alfalfa runs off, looks in the exhaust pipe]
[the car starts and blows soot in his face]
Moe: [smashing Alfalfa's head into the ground] You stole my bit!
That's my bit...ooh! Ooh! You stole my bit!
Man: Cut! Oh my God! He's killed the original Alfalfa.
Moe: [in the present] Yeah. Luckily, Alfalfa was an orphan owned by the studio.

Whoa...nerd alert. Anywho, I ought to get back to my Revolutionary America reading.

Here's A Fuckin' Koan For You (Look it up, Whitey McFredatron)

2006-02-27T13:14:00.000-05:00

HOW DID SARAH VOWELL GET TO BE SO FUCKING UGLY, and who the fuck said it was okay to make her? I mean really--not only does she repulse me to the point of bulimia, but the uninviting (to employ profound euphemism) nature of her face--which currently takes up HALF of the motherfucking NYTimes screen--has made it really difficult for me to keep up with current events. Like that totally heartwarming story about how dungeons and dragons has finally made it to the internet, allowing thousands more isolated teens with aspirations of trenchcoat mafiadom to contemplate school shootings and cult suicides all the more seriously. But hey all you stovetop freedom riders, you should totally give Sarah 'oops I crapped my face' Vowell a holler when you're in NYC--she's bound to get FReAk NAsTy when she parties; just be sure to set her up with some super open-minded (read: drunk on the verge of dying) pratt kid, and also to not call me.

Stovetop Records Freedom Spring Tour

2006-02-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

for dates and treats, try home.

mohammad's life on the d-list, or how all them UWS bolsheviks learned to stop worrying and love the bun.

2006-02-16T19:08:00.000-05:00

Speaking of the former Kalmar union's member nations, Denmark faces yet another round of knuckle rapping from all them uppity jihadists. It’s true: Iran, with the assistance of the Iranian Confectioner’s Union, has forced its bakeries to rename their Danish pastries "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad."

The collective freak-out of the Muslim world has been particularly half-baked [R.I.P. Christopher Lee Rios a.k.a. rapper Big Pun], for as a comedic hero, the Mo-man just ain't that funny. It’s like dude, get a fuckin haircut—the world isn't ready for another Gallagher. A brief perusal of the cartoons themselves reveals that Mohammad, like Andy Dick or Kathy Griffith, will never really amount to much, making him an ideal candidate for the Bravo network’s new line of D-list celebrity hosted shows. (‘D’ for ‘Die, you fuck.') One might even go so far as to label Mohammad, and pardon my use of some retro-Variety lingo here, a 'stinker' or a ‘chump’--especially for what he’s done to pop-culture in the past few years. (CYHSY: I’m talking to you.)

Nevertheless, professors of media ethics everywhere have tabled their Zionism for the time being to offer thanks: from the Ikea dinner tables of UWS/Park Slope rent-controlled apartments everywhere, the Bolsheviks teaching our NYU counterparts are raising their glasses of Yellowtail to shout L’Chai’m! For just as punk rock died when the first kid said that it wasn't dead, so, too, did the salaciousness of that blue-stocking’d Judy Miller Story fade when even the self-proclaimed 'missile dick chicks'got in on the fun of ridiculing her. Not to digress (I could hate on Rutgers communications majors all day), the jihadists have started fighting their wars with Bushian tactics, shooting their metaphorical attorney-friends in the face with mini-fatwa pellets, and all i gots to say is, sign me the fuck up: now that we've found comedy in the Muslim world, we can finally get Ted Kaczynski to do a number on Albert Brooks.

And in conclusion, I got news for ya: the dude on the cover of Deep Cuts totally looks like Harry M. Whittington after a botched partial face transplant conducted by some boozed-up surgeons. Cause that's how all a thems likes to roll.

The Knife has been 'Forked

2006-02-13T20:59:00.000-05:00

Maybe you heard "Heartbeats" while eying chinos at the Gap some years ago. Sam says he did. Either way, a band many of us thought was a dirty little dance secret in July just got an 8.6 and Best New Music nod from the snarky, wordy arbiters of hip music, Pitchfork. Mark Pytlik's last review sentence reads: "An early contender for best record of the quarter, here's hoping Silent Shout inspires similar imagination and pushing outwards; after all, no matter how heady and interior electronic music allows itself to become, it could never get as scary as the world outside."
Damn, Pytlik is truth. But seriously, with Jose Gonzalez scoring with Sony for a new ad featuring his cover of "Heartbeats", can a slot next to the Arcade Fire at Coachella, or even better, Bonnaroo (maybe even Perry's pet Lollapalooza) be that far off? Here's hoping against it. I have nothing against this new record, of which I've only heard one track ("Neverland"), but wish more people would listen to their eponymous LP, featuring such sweet tunes as "Reindeer" and "N.Y. Hotel." That record is more satisfying than Deep Cuts, which thins after the opening hit and "You Take My Breath Away."