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."

Wyclef Live!

2006-02-12T18:26:00.000-05:00

"If Osama bin Laden had smoked a joint, there wouldn't be no 9/11."

Dick Goes Ballistic

2006-02-12T17:12:00.000-05:00

Yes, in fact, Vice President Cheney did shoot a fellow senior on a hunting trip. His victim was a grey attorney named Harry Whittington, who is in stable condition, reports CNN, which splashed the story as their web lead. The NY Times has snowstorms to worry about, so they weren't running this wonderful image with an indelible impression of the canniving Veep setting his sights on his once-but-no-more (I hope) hunting buddy. I can't help but note the revelations in this story, that is, that Dick's got terrible aim and an itchy trigger finger.

Perhaps better, though, are the quotes from Katherine Armstrong, the hag at whose ranch Dick and co. were quail hunting. From the AP:

"Whittington ''came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself,'' Armstrong told the Associated Press in an interview. ''The vice president didn't see him,'' she continued. ''The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good.'' She said Whittington was bleeding but not very seriously injured, and Cheney was very apologetic. ''It broke the skin,'' she said. ''It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that.''
''This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself,'' said Armstrong.

Itching to get busy

2006-02-10T16:52:00.000-05:00

The fiddlings with my MySpace page moments ago were fruitful. There is some version of a bio now, some songs still processing, and now the substantial urge to rerecord the two songs (or at least Notes on a Bar) currently featured on the site. what site? why, Grain Riot's MySpace. Pansy Snowflake will be my friend, I hope.

In related news, the much-hyped Wyclef/Blackalicious show is tomorrow night, TOMORROW NIGHT! maybe the "dorm kid" will live up to his name and rock out in my room and piss off my neighbors, like we did last night as Sam strum-strummed the Pansy tune "Go Back to New Haven." An unedited, blunt review of the Wyclef show - unlike the likely follow-up article to be printed in the Misc next week - will appear on this here Seat shortly thereafter.

Also, time for the offical announcement of two new butts on the Standard Toilet: Mary's and Winston's! David and Sam, let's treat them kindly and hope for some crackpot culture rants soon!

Another interview!

2006-02-06T18:05:00.000-05:00

Though it's not quite exciting as Ferd's Wyclef interview -- I mean, it's actually a little boring -- here's my interview Blackalicious' Gift of Gab. This interview only confirms my distaste for the limp, unchallenging genre that is backpacker hip-hop. Bring it back, y'all. Everything's better 20 years ago! But that's okay. We're all good. Everything's good. All love.

The Miscellany News: First of all, what should I call you? Mr. Gab?

The Gift of Gab: Just Gab. Gab is fine.

MN All right, cool. So what do you know about Vassar? Have you ever heard of it before?

G No, I haven’t.

MN What are college crowds usually like? Do you like them more than others?

G Wait, say that again. Vassar?

MN V-A-S—

G Oh, yeah! That’s in New York, right?

MN Yeah, it’s in Poughkeepsie.

G Oh, that’s where we’re going. You know, I do so many different interviews every day, I— I know we’re doing a show on the 11th. I’ve never been to that area before. I mean, I love New York [City]—I love New York—I’ve been there plenty of times, but never to that area of New York. I’m looking forward to checking it out.

MN So I hear you play lots of college shows.

G Yeah, definitely. That’s a big part of Blackalicious. We definitely get a lot of support from college kids.

MN Do you prefer college kids to other hip-hop fans?

G You know, it’s all about music. It’s not a matter of liking somebody more than somebody else. When people show us love, we show them love back.

MN What’s the audience at a Blackalicious college show like?

G They’re definitely high energy, very high-octane. Lot of adrenaline. Probably more so than a regular crowd, for some reason.

MN Do you have any crazy stories from those shows?

G Oh, man. You get drunk girls who jump up on stage and dance, you know? All of the crazy stories involve drinking, obviously.

MN Do you go to the parties after the shows?

G Occasionally we go and hang out. But the older we get, the less we do that. When we were younger, it was more about that, the partying. But now, I have to think of my job as my job, and treat it as so.

MN Is press still important to you? Do you read music magazines or websites?

G Oh, definitely. Press is our outlet for making people aware that our record is out, or that we’re coming to their city. Press is definitely needed.

MN Are there any in particular that you read?

G All of them, man. I love all of them.

MN Let’s talk some music. Who are you listening to these days?

G Right now, I’m listening to a lot of old stuff. Lot of Stevie Wonder. I like the Kanye West record, the Common record, the new Fugees single. John Legend. But it varies. I’m really interested in world music now, like music from Brazil or India. I’m trying to experience other kinds of music so I can expand my songwriting abilities.

MN So is that stuff going to be reflected in your next record?

G Well, I’m just a student now. Eventually, it’s going to come out. I’m the type of writer that—even if I’m reading a book, it’s going to come out in my writing.

MN I want to ask you more about your contemporaries. Is there anyone whose music you really hate? Like the Black Eyed Peas?

G I don’t hate anybody. Everybody has their right to do their own thing. Music is like religion. Once you start saying you hate something because it may not be what you do, and act like you’re the person who dictates what’s good, then … it’s like religion. Everyone can do their own thing. Saying “this is how you’re supposed to be” is not how you should listen to music.

MN Would you ever do a Chopped & Screwed record?

G It depends on the beats we have.

MN What’s your pre-show routine? Do you have any crazy demands on your rider, like Jennifer Lopez’s all white room?

G No, nothing too extravagant. I just like to zone out and get in my own space before a show. Just tap into my role, and get into my world.

MN What about in the studio?

G That’s our second home. We live there, so that’s home base right there.

MN Is there anything else you want to say to the Vassar community?

G Just keep it simple. You’re going to see a really good show.

Wyclef Jean Interview

2006-02-05T22:47:00.000-05:00

I interviewed Wyclef Jean for the Miscellany News on Friday. He's playing at Vassar on Saturday with Blackalicious, and the Poughkeepsie High School step team. Sam and I came up with questions, and then last Friday, he, Mead and I sprinted back to my room from breakfast to call Clef, finally. Here's the text of it, to be printed in the Misc on Thursday, Feb. 11. Typos likely. I hope this isn't illegal or anything:

The Miscellany News: Clef, I understand you’re going down to Haiti soon. Can you tell us about your charity, Yelé Haiti?

Wyclef Jean: I’m just getting back from chillin’ with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt down there. I opened this foundation two years ago and the idea is that through music and through my celebrity, I use that to raise money for Haiti because 80% of the population can’t read, can’t write. It’s a high poverty situation. So I opened this organization to show people [that with] three or five dollars, that can feed a family. You know what I’m saying? Or six dollars.

MN: Is this charity organization a recent development?

WJ: I mean I’ve always been doing it. Through the years we had Clef Kids. I’ve had a whole lot of organizations. Charity is just part what we do, you know?

MN: Moving on to Vassar, I know you played here a few years ago. What do you remember about that show?

WJ: It was crazy.

MN: Crazy? How so?

WJ: Just the people. The people are as crazy as me when it comes to a live performance.

MN: Did you stick around and go to any parties by any chance?

WJ: Yeah, I dipped around. I was chillin’. You know, everyone knows me, man. They call me the college dorm kid, you know? I got kicked out of the third year. So the best way to make it up is to rock out when I play.

MN: What do you remember about college before you got kicked out?

WJ: I remember having to really chip up and save up just to eat the right meal on the weekend. And the right meal would be Dominoes pizza and beer. I remember teachers and stuff, having to wake up to just like fight myself so I could make the class.

MN: What sorts of things were you studying then?

WJ: I was studying music theory.

MN: I know everyone asks you these days about the Fugees. What’s the story? Is there more new material on the way?

WJ: Yeah we got a joint on the underground called “Take It Easy,” and we’re in the studio recording an album scheduled to come out in the fall.

MN: Is there a name for that record now?

WJ: No, the name for it right now is called Work in Progress.

MN: What’s it going to sound like?

WJ: Being that we all traveled all around the world, we got a chance to listen to a whole lot of music, plus the music in the States – I think the album is going to have a very global hip-hop feel to it.

MN: I know that you’ve played a lot of college shows, but obviously you’re still Wyclef, the big hip-hop artist. Do you think you’re playing to certain crowds, or lots of different crowds? I remember Howard Dean said you were his favorite artist. Do you think you have a very broad appeal?

WJ: In my mind, I always keep it very simple. I could play your college and the next day you turn on your television and you see me, you know what mean? Or, I’m doing this, I’m doing that. You know, in my world, where I’m at, they consider me a superstar icon. But I’m just a simple kid that left Haiti, moved to Brooklyn and New Jersey. You give me a guitar and a few drinks, and I’ll have a nice time, you what I’m sayin’?

MN: I saw you play at Columbia a couple years ago and you climbed the scaffolding on the stage.

WJ: Oh, I had just came out of the hospital!

MN: Yeah that was pretty ridiculous.

WJ: I still had the IV tube shit in me, man.

MN: How did you get through that? Were you in pain at all?

WJ: Yeah I was in pain. I had food poisoning. And I was dying in the fuckin’ hospital. But I was like, “Yo, I got this fuckin’ show at Columbia. I’m not gonna miss the show.” And against the doctor’s wishes, I got myself out of the IV, and snuck out the hospital, and my bro picked me up, and went down there. The fuckin’ hospital tag-band was still on me. I was like a fuckin’ psycho patient.

MN: Are you going to do similarly crazy things when you play here next week? I mean, you’re not breaking out of the hospital, but…

WJ: I mean, people call it crazy, you know, but I don’t really call it crazy, climbing things. Some people got mountain climbing; I climb stages, you know?

MN: Is the press important to you these days, either attention they give you or certain magazines you read for music news? Are you an avid reader of certain music websites or anything?

WJ: I mostly read books. Like, a lot of people be like “Wy, you don’t read your press?” I say, “I’m going to read it when I turn like 65,” you know? But I just have so much work I have to do right now, I don’t want to get caught up in the hype of the press.

MN: What sort of music are you listening to these days?

WJ: Lately I’ve been into a lot of old stuff. Into a lot of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, some of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis. Recent stuff, probably listening to, like, G-Unit. I like Dipset.

MN: Do you hope that you’ll be on the cover of Rolling Stone again?

WJ: I mean I don’t really think about that, you know, but it’s just going to happen. Like I have different phases: the Fugees is a superstar band. Ain’t no way the Fugees are going to come out and it’s not going to be on the cover of every magazine. But I’m not thinking about that. “Yo, let me get on the cover…” You know what I mean? It just is.

MN: I hear you. It would be awesome if you wanted to kick it with us after the show. A bunch of us here all play music – drinking beers, playing guitars, rocking out, that’s what we’re pretty much about here on the weekends.

WJ: You all know Michael Hedges?

MN: Yeah a little bit.

WJ: He’s a crazy guitar player. He does a certain style of tuning which is dope.

MN: So you’re in the studio now. Are you recording for this Fugees album?

WJ: Yeah, we in Fugee mode right now.

MN: Is that Fugee mode in New York City?

WJ: Yeah, Fugee mode between New York and California.

MN: Are you guys all in the studio together right now?

WJ: They’ll be coming here later. It’s still early.

MN: And then you’re going to Haiti again?

WJ: Yeah, I’m going down to Haiti on Monday.

MN: So basically the life of Wyclef these days is hanging out in the studio with Lauryn Hill and Pras and then going down to Haiti. Is that an accurate impression? Are you busy all the time? Any downtime?

WJ: No we always busy. We got the Fugees stuff, then I got the label, Clef Records. Haiti just plays a part of everything because that’s where the charity is at.

MN: Cool. I know a lot of people here who are excited to see you and Blackalicious, and also to see the Poughkeepsie High School step team, the best in the nation, who will be performing at your concert, too.

WJ: All right, well that’s hot. I’m gonna see you all there then, man.

MN: Yeah, we’ll see you there. Hopefully, we can maybe even play some guitars afterwards if you want to see some dorm life.

WJ: All right. That’s what’s up, man.

More Demos (now from Poughkeepsie)

2006-01-26T17:39:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

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"

2006-01-17T22:19:00.000-05:00

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)

2006-01-12T21:45:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-11T21:13:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-10T19:33:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-06T00:26:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

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!

The Best Record Of This Year (Or Any Year?) or How I Survived American Express

2005-12-31T22:44:00.000-05:00

This summer I worked in an American Express office in the suburbs outside Portland, Oregon. In a somewhat misguided effort at packing lightly I left all of my records and CDs in storage in Poughkeepsie, thinking that digital music would just have to suffice for the duration of the summer. But I'm an idiot. I don't have an ipod and I can't remember if I was just planning to plug my computer into my car stereo or what but I found myself facing an oppressively hot rush hour commute with nothing but the radio to keep me company. I decided that something had to be done. Fortunately the office I was working at had an adequate supply of blank CD-Rs that didn't appear to have any off-limits signs on them. I managed to smuggle five out of the office one day early in the summer and when I got home I realized that thieving was the easy part. I now had to pick which five records were going to serve as "the records of the summer." Usually music geeks tend to wait until the end of a designated period of time before declaring the top five or top ten hot jams of said period of time. Here I was though, in the unique position of declaring which records would define my three months in Portland when I had only been on the west coast for a few days. It was a frighteningly limiting task before but at the same time I couldn't help but feel a little drunk with power. This was almost like time travel. I say almost because one thing I definitely didn't see coming was the spectacular record "The Getty Address" by the Dirty Projectors.

Why exactly I have come to regard this particular record as one of the best things to happen to American music in the last ten years still remains somewhat of a mystery to me. But I do have a few ideas. I say American music because the kind of songs that Dave Longstreth is writing are characteristically and distinctly American. This, of course has something to do with the the subject matter of the album itself: life in post 9-11 America, the Battle of Gettysburg, Hernan Cortes' invasion of the Americas, and a mythical protagonist named Don Henley.

It also has to do with sounds. I don't feel like I have to do to much explaining when I say that songs that are popular today sound a lot like songs that were popular twenty years ago, and that garage rock as a genre has been around the block more times than a dime store hooker. Even artists working with older vocabularies and attempting to revitalize and reinvent genres within a more modern framework run into the same problems (the entire "freak folk" scene). It would have been easy for this to happen to the Getty Adress were it not for the record's unique evolution. Longstreth first began formulating the core ideas for this album as a student at Yale, where he wrote and recorded arrangements for wind septet, women's choir, and cello octet. Had he left the arrangements as they were recorded the result would have been less remarkable. However after dropping out of school and releasing two records on Portland's States Rights label, Longstreth returned to his previous recordings, digitally deconstructing each of the themes and crafting new songs out of the rearranged parts. The result is a glitchy, jarring masterpiece that fuses European and African influences with American folk, jazz, soul, pop.
What is most compelling about the record though is the marriage of the subject matter and the musical vessel that holds it. By wholly conceiving the piece in the styles and sounds of years past and then filtering those sounds through the distinctly contemporary environments of laptop pop, Longstreth brings the entire history of American music forward while at the same time addressing what exactly it means to be American.

What it meant to be an American for me that summer was a wretched eighty minute daily commute to suburbia and back. It went like this: I put on the Getty Address just as I am leaving the office and see weather or not the record finishes by the time I finally pull into my driveway. "I Will Truck" usually hits as I pull onto I-5 south jousting with frieghters and SUV's for my share of a lane while enjoying, arguably, one of the best uses of finger snapping in a song ever. Nothing scares me more than a mack truck at sixty miles per hour and I find the abrupt alternations of horn riffs and gated choirs a perfect musical manifestation of my tangled nerves. I arrive at the I-84 interchange as Cortes is making his landing in the new world in "D. Henley's Dream." Cortes not only as the conquerer of America but Cortes as a metaphor for invasion itself. "There's an eagle and a snake" waiting for him but there's also "a lake of black gold"-a prefiguration of invasions to come. As Longstreth expands on this symbol in "Drilling Profitably" and "Finches Song" I am close to my house. The questions he asks and the themes he touches on are simple, poignant and as important in a historical context as they are to life today. "Who is the searcher? Who is the colonist?" but the answers are not easy and the warnings he gives of invasions to come ("do not colonize the insides") often lend an air of despair to the last third of the album. But I don't have time to think about those questions. I've just had a hard day at work and now I'm pulling into my driveway. I barely even think about how, everyday, I "benefit from the legacy of the fallen." I don't contemplate because there's always some distraction, some commodity gloss. Some tour guide pointing me towards the gift shop. I notice how quickly I've used the tank of gas I bought yesterday and those questions start to sink in-they sink just like bodies sinking into the ground and decomposing into a black lake for the next generation of invading forces to fight over.

some meaningful movies

2005-12-26T23:17:00.000-05:00

hey, kids, in longboat key, florida. i go here every christmas-new year's to see my cousins and my grandparents. come in from philadelphia, marin county, chicago, and the north shore to celebrate my fickle grandmother's birthday and the joys of a classically disorganized large jewish clan. the grandfather's clinging to claims of patriarchy and the mothers are kvetching.

i saw syriana and munich. while both ambitious and self-righteous flicks with all the hallmarks of each (beautiful shots of middle eastern and european locales, respectively, and stone-faced stares aided by pulsing, supposedly ethnically correct soundtracks), one is a disorganized mess, not even in its handheld camerawork, while the other flies directly into the face of tactless kitsch. i will explain more, i hope, when my internet access isn't confined to my aunt's computer. but read a helpful new yorker review of munich -- does spielberg really need to portray the protagonist's war-ridden anguish by literal gunfire in his bedroom while he climaxes in his wife? and understand that syriana is a second-rate traffic, several discombobulated narratives that, thank god, ask you to make the moral judgments yourself (because it's so confusing!) and has its hunky broham put on 30 lbs, instead of munich's adonis-like regular old jew.

see you in 06.

Sacred Objects

2005-12-24T14:31:00.000-05:00

The fragments of opinion and intricicies of taste that are forever defining the world of the music lover can, to one who has not fully absorbed the complexities of said world, appear confusing and arbitrary at face value. And when these intricicies and opinions reach their full potentiality in a frenzied state of heightened activity, such as during the compilation of an annual top ten list, the world of the music lover, in the eyes of the uninitiated, gives itself over completely to irrationality. How, the observer asks, can the music lover commit himself fully to his unassailing love of the creative process-which every music lover must posess or his opinion is worthless-embrace a vast array of genres, make breakfast with his music, drive with it, sedate himself with it, and at the end of every year sweep the majority of it to the side and into the dustbin of history? Why not let music be? Never mind that these questions only summon up ongoing critical debates in every area of the arts. With regard to the phenomenon of classifying music in general and top ten lists in particular it is specific enough. So why does the music lover classify?

A quote from the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss regarding the herbatology of native tribes of South America can be just as usefully applied in this situation. "It may be objected that science of this kind can scarcely be of much practical effet. The answer to this is that its main purpose is not a practical one." The classifying that goes on in the mind of the musci lover cannot be said to aid in his physical survival. Professional music writers, critics, and industry types excepted. This classifying "meets intellectual requirements rather than or instead of satisfying needs. The real question is...whether some initial order can be introduced into the universe by means of these groupings. Classifying, as opposed to not classifying, has a value of its own." Now the world is illuminated. The top singles/ten/dozen/genre list suddenly takes on signifigance because of itself. Though the structure itself is the most important thing there is no denying that this structure alters the objects it holds. The sacredness of the great record must be preserved by a system of order. Or rather "it could even be said that being in their place is what makes them sacred for if they were taken out of their place, even in thought, the entire order of the universe would be destroyed. Sacred objects therefore contribute to the maintenance of order in the universe by occupying the places allocated to them." And with a full fledged endorsement of this maintenance of order, here are my sacred objects. There are eleven of them.

XI) Bonnie "Prince" Billy/Matt Sweeney-Superwolf
X) Dungen-Ta Det Lungt
IX) Genghis Tron-Cloak of Love
VIII) M.I.A.-Aruler
VII) Antony and the Johnsons-I Am a Bird Now
VI) Gang Gang Dance-God's Money
V) YACHT-Mega
IV) The Kallikak Family-May 23 2007
III) [[[Vvrrssnn]]]-s/t
II) Animal Collective-Feels
I) Dirty Projectors-The Getty Adress

The National, a "Tops" Addendum

2005-12-22T19:27:00.000-05:00

A year is long, things get lost by the way or just plainly never picked up at all. My only point of reference for The National was as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's touring partner early this fall. That was Clap Your Hands' big come-out party, even if I remember their show at Vassar in September (withouth the National) more for the jumping and pushing we did in the crowd, and less for the music. I did get to meet Alex Ounsworth after the show and chat for a minute or two, which was cool, but that's digressing. The National was not at that show, but maybe if they had opened, instead of the prepster-wanker Yalies known as the Harlemshakes, I could have heard one of the best bands of 2005 back in September, rather than now, less than two weeks before 2006. Their album Alligator is lyrically direct, the guitars and percussion are bare and simply-structured. Songs start slow, walking along with their head at their shoes, until looking up and racing toward what's ahead. At first, think of the Wrens. But even as the guitars and drums run, surging, the vocals remain low, baritone, and paced.

There is some cheesiness in the songs at first - I suppose that's on account of the lyrics and their low, manly-but-emotive delivery. Whether this is derivative, I can't really measure, partly out of a lack of grapsable references, and because, you know, fuck being derivative. If I read somewhere that The National's singer sounds like Ian Curtis and that this is all a well-executed ape of Joy Division, I really don't care. A.) Because I don't listen to Joy Division on a daily basis, though I have an idea of what awful apings of their songs sound like (Interpol), but more importantly, B.) Because for all the derivative bands (Wolf Parade, Clap Your Hands, Arcade Fire) that are variously banal and overhyped, The National are neither of those things.

Their songs, which I'm still getting into - Zach passed Alligator along earlier this week - are not massively original, in the sense that precise, well-played rock is familiar. The National's songs are spirited and pointed, forgoing a blatant formula, which means they are the only new indie-rock I've been able to enjoy this year without reactions of "well, here come the drums; here come the 20 seconds of overtly shrill Talking Heads:77 vocal rip-off; here comes the synth line; doesn't this sounds like Modest Mouse?"

Such things are important these days, not only to satisfy the snide tendencies of a disollusioned Pitchfork reader, but as reassurance that the chance to hear pleasing, challenging music that has some ownership of itself does not only lie with the old guys - Will Oldham, David Berman - or the new crazies like Animal Collective.

My Tops

2005-12-17T21:32:00.000-05:00

I've made it a baker's dozen. In order, the records that have fit my fancy this year:

1 Antony & the Johnsons - I am a Bird now
2 Matt Sweeney and Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Superwolf
3 Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers
4 Animal Collective - Feels
5 Genghis Tron - Cloak of Love EP
6 Thanksgiving - Cave Days and Moments
7 Architecture in Helsinki- In Case We Die
8 Xiu Xiu - La Forêt
9 Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow
10 Y.A.C.H.T. - Mega
11 Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
12 Jose Gonzalez - Veneer
13 David Knowles - Home (I disagree with one Chelsea Cochran, who had this to say, among other nuggets:

"Unfortunately, it soon becomes obvious that Knowles needs to spend a little more time exploring composition and basic musical skills. His inability to stay on rhythm or to play simple chords consistently begins to replace the image of minimalism with the image of ineptitude. "

the best the best the best

2005-12-17T21:12:00.000-05:00

Yeah, whatever, I listen to boring music. But honestly, here's what I've listened to and enjoyed most this year:

15 Ladytron - The Witching Hour (garage Ladiez)

14 Spoon - Gimme Fiction (fallacy of Spoon's barebonesism)

13/12 V/A - Nao Wave/The Sexual Life Of Savages (Ian Curtis in Portuguese -- got two Brazilian post-punk comps and it's all the same to me!)

11 Pansy Snowflake and the Lilypads - Demos (cutesy VU/Mag Fields fakers)

10 Ninja High School - Young Adults Against Suicide (#2 for Glenview brohams)

9 Babyshambles - Down In Albion (la belle et la bete)

8 Out Hud - Let Us Never Speak of It Again (skinny chicks are cute on the dancefloor)

7 V/A - Grlz: Women Ahead Of Their Time (riot g's)

6 Orange Juice - The Glasgow School (pre-Prince post-Buzzcocks, all B&S freshly squeezed demos)

5 The Dirty Projectors - The Getty Address (I see the piano and it keeps going forever)

4 Deerhoof - The Runners Four (the audience members were just hugging each other)

3 Animal Collective - Feels (just like my father)

2 The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike (a little bit better with We Just Won't Be Defeated)

1 M.I.A. - Arular (the best album since Inches)

Honorable mention lamers

The Go-Betweens - Oceans Apart
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock and Roll
Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Matt Sweeney - Superwolf
The Books - Lost and Safe

In fact, Teri Hatcher's passion wagon does not exist

2005-12-17T14:21:00.000-05:00

This might be too close to Gawker, so I've been trying to come up with a seven-degrees connection of Teri Hatcher to some musician. Can't think of any now. Suggestions welcome, otherwise I'll justify this under the banner of "Daft Culture," or what David and I originally crafted as the the scope of the 'Seat.

From Slate:

Buried on Page 30 of the National Enquirer is a small-type "apology" to the Desperate Housewives star: "A cover story we ran entitled 'Teri Hatcher—Amazing Bedroom secrets' was based on an interview sold to us by an experienced freelance journalist who we now believe never actually conducted the interview. … Ms. Hatcher has never engaged in sexual relations with men in a van parked on her property, nor does she leave her child alone in her house while having 'steamy romps' with men in a 'passion wagon.' … We also published a story suggesting that Ms. Hatcher … had become 'desperately thin' and was 'wasting away.' … We now know that during the past seven years, her weight has fluctuated by only three pounds—a result of healthy diet, moderate exercise and a good metabolism. Ms. Hatcher is fit and looks great, and her healthy appearance is nothing new."
http://www.slate.com/id/2131912/

Top Ten Albums of 2005

2005-12-06T02:22:00.000-05:00

Hey dudes. Hatesomethingbeautiful.com contacted our publicist and requested a top ten list from "Glitter Pals" for their site. You guys should make lists too!!!

(I'm pretty much down with everything on here)
Glitter Pals 2005 Top Ten Albums:

1. Oneida - The Wedding
2. Yip Yip - Pro-Twelve Thinker
3. Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun
4. Alan Braxe & Friends - The Upper Cuts
5. Gospel - The Moon is a Dead World
6. Vitalic - OK Cowboy
7. Apse - s/t
8. Gang Gang Dance - God's Money
9. Mike Jones - Who is Mike Jones?
10. usaisamonster - Wohaw

Shania Twain and everybody loves money

2005-12-05T23:12:00.000-05:00

First she came out with three versions of Up!, each with slightly tweaked instrumentation to appeal to its respective market (country, pop, and world music). Then on Shania's greatest hits album, she released two versions of "Party For Two," one with country star Billy Cunningham, the other with Extra correspondent/Sugar Ray lead singer Mark McGrath.

The video's here (http://www.musicremedy.com/audio/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowAudio&AudioId=2078 -- I dunno how to do links. David?). If you can, try to find the one with the country dude, which is more excusable, I guess, because Billy didn't get into the music industry on a punk band with two guitarists who met because they were both wearing Jam pins, and who'd previously played greasy LA locales before, you know, state fairs and stadiums (Mark McGrath and Aerosmith are equisellouts, I guess, but I could say more about that later). But as you watch Mark McGrath, now acting like a retard in a Shania Twain video, mugging for the camera and scooping up mad honeys and flashing the bro sign everywhere, which is already terrible enough, try to imagine some equally decked out metro dude doing the EXACT SAME THING and singing the EXACT SAME PART in the "country" version of the video.

It's way funny. But, whatever, good for all the folks involved. They're making money.

this isn't a real post

2005-11-30T18:43:00.000-05:00

no one really reads this blog yet, so it's okay that i'm just putting this up to revise later. uh, heard another couple new strokes songs through bbc radio rips, so the quality is shit, but i think i got some ideas (more ways than one).

1) production and arrangement sound a lot like new green day on "heart in a cage." kahne in the studio: "that's hot, man! just let that punky stuff rip!"

2) "ask me anything" sounds like the too-clean, saccharine computer stuff that most modern rock bands end up flirting with anyway, but in many ways the keyboard is just the usual strokes sound -- minimal bass, rhythmic arpeggiation guitar riffs that sound like awesome shit in "the end has no end" -- compressed into one instrument. come to think of it, the song's a serious ode to the magnetic fields:

-sounds like cello flourishes underneath the synth (like the nuanced "all my little words"). roughened mellotron-and-vox (just those!) going it alone, as merritt often does: ballsiness of a great band's even better songwriter.

-inconclusive, woe is me lyrics that i think will be all over the new album (chorus: "i've got nothing to say," over and over, then "i've got nothing to give, got no reason to live / but i will fight to survive, i'll try to get by.") this after the "i hate them all, i hate myself for hating them / so i'll drink some more, and love them more" in "the other side" and the disarming "my feelings are more important than yours ... your feelings are more important, of course" during the choruses of "razor blade." and then there's this one: "don't be a coconut, i'm just trying to talk to you / we could drag it out, but that's for other bands to do." jules mixes candor with self-aware metaphors, and other ones that just don't make sense: sardonic merritt wit. we're used to direct statements from this band!

-that definite baritone, pensive cadence (serious "i thought you were my boyfriend" or "(crazy for you but) not that crazy" stuff). whatta voice. usually jules takes it up a notch or is content burying his tinny voice. but here he's sad as the bottom of the ocean, etc

-oddly uplifting, bittersweet (predictable) chord progression

3) "vision of division" is a nasty blondie mess that slinks into "new york city cops" territory. that was always my least favorite strokes song. unfortunately the last minute and a half teeters on the edge of nu-metal hambonery with big vocals and bigger drums.

but i like them anyway! maybe because it's blind allegiance, but i doubt it. i imagine "heart in a cage" on the local alt rock station, and instead of whining punk vocals, we get sultry jules way up front. and i guess i appreciate their new idiosyncracies on "cage" and "divison." pulling for radio but for some reason they get even weirder arrangements and pay less attention to having truly dynamic hooks.

time to attack!

2005-11-24T15:29:00.000-05:00

Like Sam, I take issue with the Arcade Fire, CYHSY, Wolf Parade, and Broken Social Scene. I agree that they their sound is derivative and formulaic, although my concern is extends further. For the record, I'm going to call "bullshit" on these bands; their music is simply not-awesome. I'm upset that Pitchfork has latched onto this bullshit esthetic and I've had enought. This is not a subjective argument.

Awesomeness, as a constituent element, is missing in mainstream indie-rock music today. What is "awesomeness?" Well, awesomeness is anything that makes music exciting and unexpected. It can be flair, uniqueness, style...it's the "motherfuckers" which sets the stage for "Kick Out of the Jams." Now lets talk about The Shins, Spoon, and those other bands everyone has been worshipping in the land of indie-rock. Point to something awesome! Where is the "motherfuckers"?????When was the last time a 8.5+ Pitchfork record could be described as "awesome"? Where has awesomeness gone? Am I the only one who misses it? Rock music ceases to rock without 'awesomeness' and the absence is all I hear anymore. It's like we've rubbed the numbers off the arms of all living survivors and said "everything is going to be fine now; we're in good hands...have you ever heard the Mountain Goats?"

How did this happen? Where did the awesomeness go? Everyone is a fucking poet these days--a fucking poet and a two-string finger-picker. These acts should be pigeonholed to an open-ended genre which begins "alt-". Take alt-rock, alt-country, alt-folk, alt-dancepunk, alt-salsa. Take it all but stay out of rock and roll. And for all those fuck-happy frat boys who pre-game to the Strokes, the White Stripes, and Interpol, you can fucking have them and the Loretta Lynn album which sparked your new found interest in alt-legit-honest-to-fucking-southern-god-country. You can also have the new Limp Biscuit album with the "Bittersweet Symphony" cover--have you heard this yet?

Take the DFA also. LCD Soundsystem is another example of fluff which is painfully un-awsome. This is frat boy music. No matter where you turn on the song, it's "your favorite part" plus all the 7 minutes songs are the perfect length for beer-pong matches. I love how artfully recorded and mixed the records are--honestly, I love when all instruments hit year ear in the exact same place. It makes listening to music really fun. How fun? About as fun as finding out that your new girlfriend's favorite band is CHUMBAWMBA. Fuck this accessibility. Rock and roll needs to get dirty again. It needs to get violent. It needs to get awesome. We need another 'Metal Machine Music' and fast. Maybe Radiohead will save us 2006; a boy can dream.

Pete Doherty is a Sad Sap

2005-11-24T13:04:00.000-05:00

His new album, Down In Albion, is a wankerific breeze of shoddy Brit-Pop. You'll pump your fist listening to "Fuck Forever" and all the other songs that have Mr. Doherty playing a sloppy, jangly electric and singing about Kate, or death, or glory - whatever, it's all the same, right? Sam reviewed this album for the illustrious Miscellany News, and wrote that the endearingly cracked-out ex-Libertine was calling on Classic England - hence the romantic name Albion, and, apparently, the numerous Blake references in the lyrics. But I don't hear Blake. I hear a lucky burnout who exhausted his chances, but - thanks to his stoner schoolboy good looks and talent for playing and singing when he's especially drunk, or jittery - still hooked up with the Helen of Burberry and now gets to make records, under a band name as absurd as Babyshambles.

But I've gotten a little off-track. I'm supposed to be arguing that he is less Daft Prick, less Glorious Crack-Head, less rockstar, and more Sad Sap. Here we go: the best song on Down in Albion is the sole acoustic number, "Albion." It's a little cheesy - "If you're looking for a cheap sort/ Set in false anticipation/ I'll be waiting in the photo booth/ At the underground station" - but I like Bright Eyes, so cheesiness is a mute point. It's pretty simple chords and strumming (D mostly?) and shifts to the minors a lot, so it's sad and little emotive. During the chorus part, before Doherty sings "anywhere in Albion," he drops names of places - Liverpool, Scarborough, Catford - where he and Kate presumably had trysts, and fights, and long nights. (Cue in sympathetic audience track). Not only is this song deliciously corny and pleasant, it shows that Doherty, in a glimmer of natural romance, is not all synthetics. Pints and crack and ass and cigarettes - he certainly enjoys all that. But "gin in teacups" and "leaves on the lawn" puncture the crack-boy image just enough. And when you have a figure as monumentally fucked-up as Pete Doherty, the slightest sentimental crack is like an imperfection on a hand-blown Tiffany glass vase: it won't go away, it devalues the piece, which is then also too fragile to stand in the gallery display case. Pete is no vase, but if his burglaries and incarcerations are in any way deliberate (which, the sad addictions aside, might be), a song like "Albion", besides pleasing/placating sad saps who like Bright Eyes, taps - maybe cracks - that image.

Somebody told me

2005-11-21T16:25:00.003-05:00

To further riff on Freddy's summary of last night: it's not that indie rock has hit the mainstream, but that its pandering, obvious spawn has. See: The Killers, Modest Mouse, and Death Cab For Cutie's penchance for immediate and over-the-top vocals, but also for retaining the things that made them "quirky" ("indie") in the first place, like violins, synthesizers and moderately untraditional production techniques, replacing, or at times, equally aiding, the beefed-up radio guitars. In short, you can yell Now here's this awesome part! And this awesome part! And another awesome part! and pump your fists, basking in the glory of the obviously mixed awesome parts. Which doesn't make them inherently bad -- they're just not terribly challenging.

But the Arcade Fire, who have not had tremendous radio success, have not given in to the appropriate mixing David suggested. The guitars are barely there, and the driving rhythmic force isn't snares pushed to the front, but (especially on their most poppy songs) a steady bassline, which doesn't translate very well to radio, where you're hearing already low quality (probably) coming out of a shitty stereo.

That's not my main gripe with them. It's what Freddy said about framing the yelps, which the Talking Heads did so effectively, instead of consistently pounding the listener over the head with them. And that's exactly why I'd rather listen to Lindsay Lohan's "First" (or "Razor Blade" (see last week's post) or most any other slickly produced teen pop) instead. Lohan doesn't fuck with the vocals at all until the chorus reprise at the end of the song (for most rock songs, that's the part after the guitar solo, or for radio smash hits, after the guest rap/instrumental breakdown/newly introduced production technique that obscures the main melody). And when she does, it's genuinely captivating and surprising. For a few bars, there's something immediately different in the melody, but I eat it up instead of being jarred and confused. That's what the Talking Heads do, too. And that's why everybody loves David Byrne's melodies. "Psycho Killer," "The Big Country," etc.

So why does the indie rock community grab on so tightly to a band that won't give in to tact and nuance? Why are their melodies so consistently overwrought when, clearly, they don't have to be?

Patchouli Banter

2005-11-21T12:13:00.000-05:00

Last night, David, Sam and I sat hazy in my room, engaging in the kind of patchouli-head banter that seems elusive these days. Distracted for too long by archaic, esoteric history books and the Norton Anthology of English Lit, we broke free at long last, our minds focused instead on my old stereo and the tunes (a lot of indie pop) blasting from it at 2am. It was a fruitful discussion, I think. To summarize:

1.) Sam dissected the crass structure of the Arcade Fire, whose songs he thinks are nothing more than pieced-together exaggerations of Talking Heads lines, among other influences. Like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, this band takes a notable part of the Talking Heads - David Byrne hitting a high note for a moment on, say, any song on Talking Heads: 77 - and builds their entire song on exaggerating that vocal style, for minutes and minutes at a time. Lest we forget that David Byrne's jittery singing hit the high notes maybe two or three times in a song, for a second each time; the Arcade Fire and CYHSY craft entire refrains and choruses on some 20 or 30 seconds of aped, shrill singing. Sheesh!

2.) From me: Audioslave is the worst band around today. Awful, awful, awful, wretched, awful!!! Chew on that one for a bit, considering Chris Cornell, fondly remembering "Black Hole Sun," cringing at Tom Morello's hambone fame and goofy, not-hardcore licks, and wondering why, why, why a 90s not-so-bad alt-rocker (Cornell) got a metro/greaser groom and is suddenly hot shit on MTV2. Schwoops!

3.) David hates the mixing of the Arcade Fire - guitars turned way down, drums stale and barely there, lead vocals too shrill and too loud. Everything is soft except for the goddamn fake Byrne-singing. I proposed a conceivable remedy, if you will: the Arcade Fire crossed with Comets on Fire. Think about it: once the Canadiens cool down their boring obsession with More Songs About Buildings and Food, wouldn't their indeed well-penned songs sound so much better infused with the viscious guitar/organ/bass explosions of Comets on Fire, whose music, visualized, looks like a Ralph Steadman drawing?

Maybe the morose Montreal hipsters should fly out to Santa Cruz, become patchouli-heads themselves, and learn that music moves when you can hear more than just aped, shrill vocals. You need guitars blasting crazily, battling with the basslines, charging into a firefight under the cover of a soupy organ and effects pedals that sound like lasers.

The Arcade Comets on Fire. Comets on the Arcade Fire. Fire Comets on the Arcade.

There's No Moment But This One

2005-11-18T15:30:00.000-05:00

After a Thanksgiving show earlier this fall, I met Adrian Orange, who David knows from way back when in Portland. At the merch table, they chatted about middle school and Thanksgiving playing in David's basement in the spring, and I bought a Thanksgiving record, The "In The World" EP. I'd been listening to it digitally for some time, but, you know, Thanksgiving is meant to sound scratchy, and somehow pristine iPod fuzz, while warm, has nothing on a turntable needle.
Driving home from the show where I met Adrian, Cave Days & Moments, one of Thanksgiving's newer records - there are a few - played in the car. I had just heard a handful of these songs in concert, except Thanksgiving substituted strumming and drumming on an acoustic guitar for a sparse, erratic electric.
I am a great admirer of Thanksgiving, burrowing up to Welcome Nowhere on a dark night when I've come home late, or haven't gone out at all. Some might shortchange his music as the hectic, or dull, ho-hum of a prolific songwriter who sticks to the soft, the sad, and the grainy. His voice quivers, rising and falling, sometimes nasally, sometimes deep, defeated. He rehashes chord progressions, melodies, rumbling laptop beats - like any good singer songwriter. Or bad one. What's the difference.
Phil Elverum does not understate his affection for Thanksgiving - "the greatest songs ever written are being written right now," so says the P.W. Elverum and Sun website - and Elverum's production is like a weather system over Orange's music, sometimes thundering with target moodiness and sometimes raining, dull, slow, unmoving pitter-patter. Elverum's fickle arrangements aside, he helps bring into the studio - ok, into the cabin in the woods - the amorphous gang of K Records and whoever else is living between Portland and Anacortes and is playing some variation of this folk or roots rock. That's what it is - the nylon strumming and quick songs say folk, the anthemic all-at-once singing parts - "What do you love?""There is no moment but this one" - say roots rock .
All this is a little much, maybe. But wait - what about the mixing: steel drums and eery rhythmic wanders in the woods creep beside Adrian's skinny wisp. His voice carries the songs along in a stumble. He's singing in a cabin. So many of his songs are no longer than two minutes, but many of those that are longer run eight or nine minutes. Electric pause, acoustic pause, drumming pause - in the long songs, there are a lot of these pauses, when the singing stops and the bridge is just low graininess.
Emotional is a tired-ass way of describing music. Somehow it reduces the musician and the listener alike to say blanket "this is emotional music." I don't know if it's because such a phrase is a given, is obvious, or is just a little trite. Bucking the emo label, though, this music does make you feel many things. Phil Elverum wrote somewhere that he loves the way Thanksgiving's music makes him feel. I agree, and will drop a snip of poetry by another singer songwriter, David Berman, that somehow - maybe I'm reaching a little much here - illuminates a listen to Welcome Nowhere or Cave Days & Moments.

It is a certain hill
the one I imagine when I hear the word "hill"
and if the apocalypse turns out
to be a world-wide nervous breakdown
if our five billion minds collapse at once
well I'd call that a surprise ending
and this hill would still be beautiful
a place I wouldn't mind dying
alone or with you.
- David Berman, "Self-Portrait at 28."

2005-11-15T13:17:00.000-05:00

songs from the new strokes album are leaking. and please watch the pull between rca/label honcho-cum-producer david kahne and a band clinging to integrity during the album's promotional run. the video for "juicebox" (the song itself a surprisingly pandering attempt at modern rock success: clangy bass, neato avril guitar effects) has all the hallmarks of one ready for MTV: quick editing, video sound effects over the song (like puking, computer clicking, etc), many close-ups of the band and whirly shots of them doing rock band-like playing, mega-saturated color, expensive new technology used by the various characters (v. depressing to watch corporate shilling of cellphones puncture the strokes simulacrum), and wooden acting by a band reluctant to be part of a skit. none of which, of course, were in any of their other videos. that's not to say this is a bad one, despite the less-than-classy "plot" and its "spontaneous" probing of the taboo. it merely retains strokesy hallmarks (like their outfits!) while still begging for a greater audience on the part of the label.

it's very similar to what they've done on "razor blade." instead of swelling synths during the guitar solo, we get equally subtle "ah"s in the background, surely the part of a band refusing to employ extra-curricular production techniques. and during the post-guitar solo chorus reprise, pushing the lead vocals further up front, adding echo to them instead of the industry norm of doubling, and calling greater attention to the melody by pulling it up an octave for a few bars and dancing around the key (which has only happened on "12:51," the other strokes single rca pinned their hopes on).

for what? rca wants increased popularity and probably to best franz ferdinand, post-strokes new wavers whose hooks are anything but subtle -- the worst journalists might say the strokes sound like a light switch between on and off, but at least they'd never install a new bulb in the middle of the song (see: both ff albums' big singles) -- and are unabashedly married to a club-ready bassline. probably. but lest you songwriters lose the track, the very public contrast between artistic vision and the bottom dollar on this album (and the tours, videos, interviews, david letterman, etc) might recontextualize the allegations that the band is highly derivative. tips of the hat to the cars will be ignored and critics will deride jules for not sticking to his guns and his signature sound. ha!

2005-09-18T16:48:00.000-04:00

three long nights short on sleep and long on the drink. we had our first radio show, the novel 2am viernes slot, and it was rad. played this wolf eyes 10" against a w.s. burroughs cd—a raspy, morphined voice about queer bars and the c.i.a. worked well. slept for some few hours, took a rambling cabride to the the train with david, unintentionally flicked a fingernail on the cabbie (wow), and then we missed the train. wonder why. the city was hot and there were pb&j sammiches under a bridge and spliffs on the dirty 2nd ave sidewalk and the lovepump showcase at lit, with ears hurting and loud, good sounds. people were moshing there but way more hardcore than the clap your hands show on thursday that i forgot to mention; back then, while we were clapping, we also jumped and pushed and i stepped on people's feet and then someone nameless was sweaty w/o a shirt on and that was for sure not so cool. back to the lovepump show—"moshing" there meant one crazy hanging from a ceiling pipe and kicking wildly, almost hitting some people, and jarring my pint which allowed some spilling of $6 delicious red hook on my person. bastard. anyway, the rest of the 2nd (friday) night on and around 2nd ave was a riot, a quiet one. it was hot at a sweaty, greasy hipster party on ave a where i used my return ticket home as gum refuse. damn. david and i had a spliff with chris on the street until a mustached man in a little suv pulled up upon us and just stared, as though staking us out. chris hopped away and warned us of a new narcing trend around ny these days. scary shit. sure enough, we were back to the hops sauce last night, after seeing yip-yip and aids wolf again, and engaged in the requisite awkward, showy conversation that is our dance. i want a beer.

2005-09-15T22:10:00.000-04:00

swampy here like the goddamn bayou. of the bayou, laura bush called Katrina 'Corrina' the other day—whaahoeaaaa that's crazy, and ig'nant. but she exercises, right? perhaps she's under some crazed Arnold routine like her hubbie, which is more than i can say, though i did buy some "Performance" goggles for, you know, performance swimming, today. but really, i thought the swamp weather was done and over, but it's back with a wet, sweaty face. it looks like the sky is gonna open up like Moses soon - or maybe like reverse-Moses, since sea's won't be parting but rather falling down on the sticky air down here.