Fat Cat Plankton

And Now, Our Moment of Zen

2004-10-16T05:11:00.000-04:00

Well, I had written a fairly lengthy post trying to recap the last month, beginning with the Falcons game I attended last Sunday, but I lost the fucker before I could finish it, and now I'm too tired/lazy to conjure it all again.

Quick recap: still not used to the idea of football indoors, seems like you're in a vaccum cut off from the real world and the game itself takes on a weird scripted effect, like you're in a movie theatre or a playhouse rather than a sports arena - sometimes I felt this way about basketball in college at UNC, but the atmosphere was so much more of a pressure cooker that it sucked you into the action. Also, I had forgotten how weird the whole "howl like banshees when you're on D but act like you're at a golf match when your team has the ball" aesthetic feels when you're in person - I wanted to yell the loudest when Vick was under center, but obviously he needs to call his audibles and whatnot and Lord Knows he already has his hands full with the West Coast offense anyway.

OK, that out of the way, I think I'll just stick to current events rather than just gloss over the last month of Bush scowls, bad Kerry jokes, and worse Braves baseball.

Just saw Jon Stewart on Crossfire, which could have been a watershed moment of news media soul-searching...except for the fact that these guys are complete idiots. Now granted, as much as I adore Jon (and it's a man-crush that clearly disturbs Lauren, who first noticed it), I do think he hides behind the supposed triviality of The Daily Show too often, clearly it inures him to most criticism, and I'm always skeptical when someone has a built-in mechanism for defense like that (ie. my suspicion of certain popists, though I am one myself to a degree, b/c if you argue against popism then you're *automatically* an elitist, out-of-touch snob).

Anyway, whether he likes it or not, Jon's show has become a highly-respected source of political discourse and information (which certainly says alot about the sorry state of news media, but also it's a credit to Jon's integrity and that of his staff) and obviously he recognizes that, no matter how much he tries to deflect his *responsibility* with jokes about Crank Yankers.

Yeah, I wish Jon woulda been a little more incisive with Kerry (he's NOT the same as Letterman or Leno after all, and I think deep down he'd be insulted or at least disappointed if people thought so).

At the same time, it's stupefyingly obvious that folks like CNN have much much more of a responsibility to their audience than Jon, which is why Carlson's attempt to equate the two is both disingenuous and reprehensible.

Now, since I haven't had cable in almost a year, and even when I did I didn't watch much CNN, I'm not intimately familiar with Crossfire, though from what I have seen I gather it's mostly just talking points and empty oneupsmanship ("partisan hackery" was Jon's choice phrase). I'm proud of Jon for saying he didn't give a shit about Kerry in Cambodia, as I'm guessing that's just the kind of topic that causes these Crossfire guys to froth at the mouth for weeks. And it truly was sad to see Jon trying to honestly engage these moronic talking heads about the dearth of real, fairly reasoned debate that starts from an accumulated knowledge base and a well-honed capacity for intellectual incision rather than a nakedly partisan jumping-off point. Jon came off as incredibly bitter, but justifyingly so, while Carlson just looked petty and cruel, which brings me to my next question:

WHY DO REPUBLICANS COMPLETELY LACK A SENSE OF HUMOR?

Seriously, name me one staunch conservative that's genuinely capable of being funny, like Chris Rock is funny, like Jon Stewart is funny, like Patton Oswalt is funny, like Trey Parker and Matt Stone are funny, hell, even like Michael Moore is funny. I think that's part of the reason I'm dying to see Team America, to see Trey and Matt take some swipes at the left in the spirit of fairness, 'cause lord knows we're ripe for it. Personally I think they're just taking the piss with all this "America rocks! I love being rich!" rhetoric, and I'm having a blast watching all these hand-wringing liberal movie critics pokes holes in Trey and Matt's satirization of their precious sacred cows. OK, so I haven't seen the movie yet and so maybe they're right, but I'm 100% a card-carrying member of the leftermost part of the party, and still I think a few genuinely funny spitballs lobbed in our direction would do some of our more pompous representatives some good.

All This Time You Were Pretending

2004-09-14T09:11:00.000-04:00

OK, Pitchfork, that's it - we're through. I confess that I somewhat fell under your spell three years ago, back when you had better writers like Ott, Mitchum, and William Bowers. I was an impressionable young hipster-in-training, a burgeoning elitist - in short, a douchebag. You sold me on Broken Social Scene and together we ignored mainstream hip-hop and pop.

Then I started to grow up and come around, to give the mainstream half a chance rather than write it off just to separate myself from the tragically-uninformed masses. There was actually some great stuff out there, especially rap, shit like Jay-Z, David Banner, Bubba Sparxxx, Kanye, Just Blaze, Timbaland that I'd previously mostly ignored.

You started to do the same, Pitchfork, and I thought we were still cool, but then you abruptly decided pop wasn't where it was at and retreated right back under your indie shell (maybe the Interpol fans started to bitch, I dunno).

Anyway, you unceremoniously dropped your only good hip-hop writer (Rollie Pemberton) and now you're back to bashing pop shit out of hand. I'm with Stylus now and it's better here, we review Arcade Fire AND Ashlee Simpson. It's called variety, and it's beautiful.

I check you out sometimes, Pitchfork, but you almost always let me down. Kids I talk to here in Athens know who you are, and maybe they don't know Stylus yet, I'll grant that, but they only know you as "pretentious-ass elitist hipsters" (college radio DJ Jennifer's words, not mine).

Today was the final straw, Pitchfork, because you smarmily and idiotically bashed Avril Lavigne's new single "My Happy Ending," which I happen to think is a genuinely wonderful, emotionally compelling song. It's OK for you to disagree with me, but you should have at least given Avril the credit she deserves as an artist rather than dismissing her just b/c she's "mall-punk" (yeah I saw that). Anyone can rip a pop star to shreds with transparent sarcasm that literally drips off the screen. It's much more of an accomplishment to consider an artist, any artist, seriously, to assess their songcraft with a level head and honestly consider their place in the larger musical and cultural spectrum (god bless ya, Mr. Burns).

Ashlee Simpson, Fantasy (the comma is VERY important)

2004-09-13T16:20:00.000-04:00

I've been a slack-ass linker of late - here's me on Bjork, Clinic, and (scroll down, skip the Reggae Bob and Antibalas - not me), the World 2004 comp.

Even though I've given it a fairly-positive review in an upcoming issue of the Banner-Herald (promise I'll link this one on Thursday), I still can't quite bring myself to put Ashlee Simpson onto a CD-R. I'm pretty certain Lauren would leave me. Few would blame her (certainly not Burns, but maybe Timmerman).

Fantasy Football update - Looks like Todd "Radiohead Hater" Hutlock has got the drop on me this week thanks to his homophobic star wideout TO. Lackluster performances by Deuce McAllister, Corey Dillon, and Tony Gonzalez (three of my top four picks!) certainly didn't help my cause. Unless Ahman Green gets completely shut down AND Favre gets picked about 3 or 4 times (I've got Panthers D), looks like I'm staring down an 0-1 start.

I Love the 90s, But Not As Much As Andrew Unterberger

2004-09-03T11:01:00.000-04:00

Over at ILM they're cookin' up a Best of the 90s poll to complement last month's highly-contentious Best of the 00s (first half) scuttlebutt. I'm not sure if I was in New Orleans or my parents were visiting, but I missed voting in the 00s poll, so here's my list for posterity:

01 Radiohead – Kid A (not ashamed to admit it like 75% of the folks who voted for it on ILM)
02 Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Hearts of Oak
03 Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
04 The Strokes – Is This It (inexplicably not nominated?!)
05 Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP
06 Outkast – Stankonia (see #4, unless it just didn't get enough votes)
07 Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun (I'm callin' this 2000)
08 Sleater-Kinney – One Beat
09 Fiery Furnaces – Blueberry Boat
10 Fiery Furnaces – Gallowsbird’s Bark
11 Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Tyranny of Distance (I coulda pushed this one into the top 100)
12 Ghostface – The Pretty Toney Album
13 Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
14 The Notwist – Neon Golden
15 Dizzee Rascal - Showtime

Just for the fuck of it, here's my list if I could only select one album from each of the artists:

01 Radiohead – Kid A
02 Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Hearts of Oak
03 Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
04 The Strokes – Is This It
05 Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP
06 Outkast – Stankonia
07 Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun
08 Sleater-Kinney – One Beat
09 Fiery Furnaces – Blueberry Boat
10 Ghostface – The Pretty Toney Album
11 The Notwist – Neon Golden
12 Dizzee Rascal – Showtime
13 Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell
14 Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose
15 White Stripes – White Blood Cells

And now for the real excitement, here's what I'm probably gonna vote for when the 90s poll rolls around (the order will undoubtedly change though):

01 Radiohead – OK Computer
02 Pulp – Different Class
03 Bjork – Homogenic
04 Nirvana – In Utero
05 Nirvana – Nevermind
06 Hole – Live Through This
07 DJ Shadow - Entroducing
08 PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love
09 Notorious B.I.G. – Ready to Die
10 Nas – Illmatic
11 Beck – Odelay
12 Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville
13 Whiskeytown – Faithless Street
14 Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the 36 Chambers
15 REM – New Adventures in Hi-Fi

Apologies to:

Stereolab – Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Radiohead – The Bends
Sleater-Kinney – Dig Me Out
Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen
Dr. Dre – The Chronic
Portishead – Dummy

Leaving New York, Next Stop Athens

2004-08-31T02:09:00.000-04:00

REM's a subject I haven't yet broached on this blog, which might seem odd since I live and write about music in Athens, GA, but it's not a case of elephant-in-the-room syndrome. With the constant influx of new and younger students to the university, Stipe and co. have increasingly been relegated to the status of historical curiosities and still-extant relics, favorite sons in whom we take a passing pride but more often consider nostalgically rather than as living, thriving members of the local scene. Certainly there's an old-school bloc that fervently tracks their every murmur, but I'm betting most incoming freshman only know them from their father's tape deck, if that. Even though I was admittedly way late to the game, REM was my favorite band in high school and at least one year of college, which was kind of odd considering Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Tool, NIN, or Alice in Chains would have been more generationally appropriate. Like many a self-serious young Southern pseudo-intellectual, I found kindred spirits in REM's moodiness and mystery, its awkwardness of expression, its melodic honesty and even its sense of romance. By the time I got to Athens two years ago, though, I was more excited to be living in the same town as the Drive-By Truckers, which didn't mean I had fallen out with REM or turned my back on them, in fact I love them still to this day, just that they'd become a part of my own past as well.

"Leaving New York" starts off sounding like everything else from the post-Berry Up/Reveal era, Stipe still singing in that guileless, facile, clear-throated voice that's almost a delibertate mockery of his formerly infamous mumble. Sprightly and painfully self-aware, Stipe's cloying surface-level croon gives way to chiming prechorus guitars that tease glory-days flashbacks but they've done that before and we all know better by now. A little E-Bow wordiness rears its head in the second verse, then the second chorus comes and JUSTLIKETHATOUTOFNOWHERE there's background harmonies straight off of Life's Rich Pageant and IT IS 1986 ALL OVER AGAIN, Stipe's moody, clenched-teeth baritone conjuring the likes of "Fall on Me" and "Kohoutek," sounding for all the world like he'd never lost that voice in the first place. It's been ages since we've heard Stipe sing this way, and it's fascinating to hear the so-much-older-then-but-younger-than-that-now Stipe of today accompanied by the ghost of his younger, more evocative self, like one of those Through The Use Of Modern Technology cross-generational duet deals. I'm almost ashamed to get so excited about such an obvious retread, a memory, an echo of the past, but I'll be damned if Stipe manfully intoning "it's pulling me apart" didn't make me totally gay for him all over again.

The Briar Patch

2004-08-20T14:43:00.000-04:00

Devin the Dude's new To Tha X-Treme is typically terrific laid-back, blowed-out anti-crunk, langorous tales about the limited ambitions of smoking weed and maintaining relationships (which always seem to end in confusion or hilarity, Devin remaining vaguely bemused and fairly que sera sera throughout).

One track digs deeper, however, though you'd never know it from Devin's deceivingly lackadaisical flow. "Briar Patch" in truth is every bit as loaded as the title suggests. Devin doesn't stray too far from the infamous tale, but his delivery tells you all you need to know about the race-haunted implications of Joel Chandler Harris' story. Devin never lets on that the song is about anything more than getting caught and begging not to be tossed in the dreaded briar patch, but anyone who knows the troubled history of that fable will surely be quickly frozen in their tracks (much as I was) upon hearing Devin's chillingly earnest version.

Heldover Musical Observations from New Orleans Trip

2004-08-17T03:21:00.000-04:00

1. Mid-90s were huge - hardly heard any new music unless it was veering dangerously towards me on the sidewalk accompanied by headlights. Instead, restaurants, bars, and stores seemed to be looping '96 Buzz Bin CDs or some shit - lotsa stuff like Bush, Veruca Salt, old-skool No Doubt, I guess insta-nostalgia for all the drunken college kids.

2. Bar bands sucked - limp Janis and lame-ass Steve Miller covers

3. Regrettably, we didn't check out any jazz clubs - there were plenty of guys blowing on the streets, mostly endless variations on "When the Saints Go Marching In" or "Amazing Grace" or Hank's "Jambalaya."

4. Undeniable highlight - piercingly loud, purposefully out-of-tune calliope "concert" from the top of the Steamboat Natchez before we boarded - pretty sure she played Ernest Tubb's "Waltz Across Texas," which was great.

5. Observations from the car rides, to and fro:

a) the newest Modest Mouse CD hasn't held up well at all - I was admittedly quite smitten with it at first blush, maybe it was just misty-eyed affection for its decided lack of trendy garage-rock or dance-punk signifiers, but also it just seemed to possess a messy humanity that's missing from most overdetermined indie-rock - often Brock would say stupid juvenile faux-existential shit about God, but then he'd reveal an admirable self-deprecating streak that let you know he was just honestly working through all these philosophies and life strategies himself, and it's always more fascinating to hear the process than the result on record. Unfortunately, the whole thing plods like a bastard, I think sometimes they go for "shimmering" and just wind up sounding sluggish, like on "The World At Large," which almost makes it there but not quite. Even "Float On" is starting to sound a little saggy next to better and brighter radio favorites from 2004. "Bury Me With It" and "Black Cadillacs" remain resilient, but thanks to the rest GNFPWLBN just took a plummet on my Top 50 (yeah I had to call it a "50" to make sure we even included the album at all).

b) once I actually got a little distance from it and then indeliberately came back, Hail to the Thief sounded much better than I remember from the last time I heard it all the way through, almost as good as my initial hyperventilatings.

c) Of Montreal is boss. Lauren knows this.

d) Tool makes me sleepy.

e) Elbow makes me sleepy, but in a good way.

f) I really like the Decemberists, but still not half as much as Lauren.

Delta Blues

2004-08-11T02:52:00.000-04:00

Got back Monday night from four days in New Orleans, details and hopefully pics to follow, first though I just have to share our *harrowing* saga of police harassment.

So we're on I-10 in Mississippi, about an hour or so outside of The Big Easy (apparently Reagen coined this term, which I didn't know until this past weekend, and hence I'm gonna try and never use it again). Jessica gets pulled, tells us she was only doing 74 in a 70, so right away we're a little wary. Cop comes over to the passenger side, tells her immediately to get out of the car and come around to the back, where he tells her she was speeding and then asks where the marijuana's at. She tells him she's got no idea what he's talking about, he comes back to the car, gives Zack some shit (prolly cos he's got long hair), tells us to roll down our windows, and then turns out the drug dog, who predictably makes the rounds and then starts going apeshit on the trunk, seriously jumping up on it, scratching the hell out of Jessica's car in the process. He informs us that he knows there's pot in the car, makes us all get out, then starts fine-toothing it. At this point I make a smart-ass aside about how he's probably gonna end up ticketing Jessica for speeding b/c he's not gonna find shit for drugs, at which point he orders his partner (ie. "good cop") to cuff me, then brings me around to the driver's seat where he magically produces a huge-ass bud. At this point I'm pretty sure we're all going to jail, or at least Jessica. I know her and Zack smoke a little so I'm not entirely sure this isn't theirs. I don't find out until later that there's no way it could be, Jessica says she never smokes in the car or allows anyone to bring shit in the car, and that regardless no one would have dropped that huge of a bud without knowing it. See, if I woulda been her or if it had been my car I would have lost it when I realized they were trying to plant shit on me, but I guess she figured best to just ride it out than accuse the cops. Anyway, they finished their search (never searched our persons, mind) and then told us they weren't after this kind of piddly crap, told Jessica to make sure and vaccum out her car more often or be more careful to whom she lent it (she claimed someone else must have dropped the bud, like I said at this point I wasn't sure it couldn't have been hers so I kept my mouth shut). Most inexplicably of all, the cop hands Lauren the bud and tells her to just get rid of it - she looks at him dumbfounded and just drops it in the grass. We drive on our merry way, completely clusterfucked and astounded and speechless, no speeding ticket or anything, in fact the whole thing woulda just been amusing anecdote fodder except for the fact that Sargeant Scraps seriously fucked up Jessica's trunk, scratches and gouges down to the metal.

The rest of the trip was fab, just wanted to get that ugliness out of the way. Anyway, I'm not saying we deserve anybody's pity or whatever, it was just some bullshit, if anything it made me feel ever sorrier for the people who have to deal with this kind of shit *and worse* every day of their lives. I have little doubt that if we weren't suburban white kids in a '97 Honda Accord we prolly woulda gotten roughed up a good bit more and maybe even spent the night in the pokey. So it goes, just a cautionary tale about driving through Mississippi at 2am fwiw.

I'm Working On My Abs

2004-08-05T05:40:00.000-04:00

#1 in-joke b/w me and Lauren, week of 8/1/04:

Tweedy's pricelessly affected anti-commercial sneer on the Wilco b-side "Kicking Television."

Her: Stop shopping even.

Me: Stop buying things.

(Repeated ad infinitum).

#1 guilty pleasure b/w me and Lauren, summer of '04:

Outback Jack (don't worry, Lauren, none of our friends reads my blog).

Has led to: In-depth discussions of Maria's "crazy eyes" and Marissa's transparent bitchitude, my own bad Aussie impression, drinking games revolving around the ubiquitous "Jack sigh."

He Shoots, He Scores

2004-08-05T05:22:00.000-04:00

Bill O'Reilly interviewed by P. Diddy on the MTV site.

Nice how he equates voting with a closely contested basketball game, 'cause after all THAT'S THE ONLY WAY YOU'LL EVER GET BLACK PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT IT, right Bill?

It's A Family Affair

2004-08-05T02:51:00.000-04:00

*Grudging Praise For Pitchfork Alert*

Hilarious interview with the Fiery Furnaces here.

Personal precursor:

*One thing I love about Eleanor and Matt is how they remind me of my relationship with my own younger sister, not terribly close but definitely mutually respectful, kind of contentious but usually in a playful manner, sharing the same sense of humor but still quite capable of rattling each other's nerves. I love her to death and I think she's super special, but yeah, the idea of spending five weeks locked in a room with her is kind of terrifying.*

Some choice quotes:

Eleanor, on singing Matt's lyrics:

Eleanor: Yes. I mean, it was strange because we weren't getting along at all while we were recording, and Matt would show up and be like, "Here are the words to the song, sing them now!" And I would literally just have five minutes and then have to sing it. It was really hard. At first I'd be like, "What is this shit? I don't want to sing this."

Matt: That's bullshit.

On what the sibs have in common:

Matt: It's what we have most in common, rock records. We don't really have anything else. Well, we like to play lawn sports.

Eleanor: Yeah.

Matt: Those are the things we have in common. We get along with that. Otherwise we don't really. We never really hang out, so it's lucky we're in a band together.

Eleanor: We can watch TV together, kind of.

Pitchfork: What does your family think of you being in a band together?

Matt: They like it.

Eleanor: They like it. And they're surprised, too, since we didn't get along really well. We were so lazy, not very ambitious, and we never made anything together at all as kids.

Matt: Nothing.

On pursuing their own muses, financial considerations be damned:

Eleanor: That's pretty much all I've listened to. I wish we could make an album [like] Another Side of Bob Dylan where the songs would be so good that we could do it in about a day-and-a-half. I think it could be great, where it's just guitar-- that would be our most popular one.

Matt: Well, we can't do that until we get dropped. When you have somebody who'll give you money for a record, you can't... I mean, when it's just you, and you have to go over to a friend's house [to record], and you have $600 to spend, you have to wait to make something interesting. That's the record that you make then.

Eleanor: But then we could just take all the money...

Matt: You can't take all the money!

Eleanor: I'm just kidding.

You Indie-Rockers Think We Won't Notice You Stealing Our Pop Culture?

2004-08-04T17:06:00.000-04:00

Ted Leo's new "Criminal Piece" sounds like Cheap Trick doing that Big Star song for the theme to That 70s Show.

The Concretes' "Foreign Country" sounds like the song Adam Sandler sings to Drew Barrymore on the plane at the end of The Wedding Singer, which obviously makes it absolutely lovely.

Housekeeping/Shameless Self-Promotion

2004-08-04T12:35:00.000-04:00

BTW, all of my Stylus reviews are archived here.

There's no actual archive of my newspaper reviews, so here's the next best thing - the results of a search for all articles authored by "Josh Love" (this included interviews, features, and profiles I've done as well).

And When I Say Me, I Mean My Brain

2004-08-04T12:22:00.000-04:00

It's unavoidable: one of the things you have to give up when you start writing about music *professionally* is unconditional fandom. You know, that unshakeable conviction that everything your favorite band does is preordained to be golden. They've done so much for you in the past, why would you want to sully that relationship with objectivity? So you look the other way when they start doing backwards-masked studio experiments or songs about bugs accompanied only by accordion. Pretty much, they’re gonna have to release 3-4 consecutive albums of irredeemable crap in order to shatter your sycophancy. Really, it doesn’t matter what the new songs sound like when it comes to seeing them in concert – you just want to see them, and you owe it to yourself to do everything in your power to psych yourself up for the experience, including persuading yourself to love the new material.
Of course, all this eminently forgiving favoritism goes out the window when you start seriously trying to hold all music up to the same standards, not giving anybody a free pass anymore because you want people to have faith in your opinions and in your capacity for unbiased critique. A small but significant part of the fan inside you has to die, and while it’s a sad sad story that’s no doubt been told thousands of times, it’s no less troubling and regrettable when it happens to you. The live performance component of this negative equation is especially bothersome to me because as I’ve gotten more and more receptive to enjoying mainstream music perhaps at the expense of certain indie sounds, my list of genuinely excitement-worthy concert options seem to be shrinking accordingly.
Just as a matter of predilection and experience, I’m probably always going to prefer club shows and other intimate places over stadiums, outdoor sheds, or arenas, just because those latter venues are so rarely conducive to the passion, intensity, and direct emotional expression that are often so easily facilitated by the former. As much as I love Gretchen Wilson, Big and Rich, Los Lonely Boys, Ghostface, Petey Pablo, and Kanye West, I highly doubt I’ll experience a truly revelatory live moment with any of them anytime in the near future. The only band for whom I can really tolerate the big barns is Radiohead, and even then I greatly preferred the setup at their Stone Mountain show (7,000 or so folks in a giant field) in 2001 over 20,000 at HiFi Buys in 2003.
Basically, the whole point behind this rambling post is that I caught myself the other day trying to convince myself I liked Ted Leo’s newest, Shake the Streets, just as much as I LOVELOVELOVED Hearts of Oak and Tyranny of Distance. Actually, I think it’s a solid, occasionally splended album and in time perhaps I might regard it just as highly as his others, but right now I consider a definite notch below his previous standard, which is a little bit sad when you think about it because Ted is undoubtedly one of my top five favorite performers right now and if anyone can make me truly geeky and swoony and fanboyish about rock ‘n’ roll, it’s him.
Shake the Streets is by no means a disappointment, but at the same time I can’t let my desire to turn Ted into a paragon of All Things Good obscure the weaknesses I hear when I listen to the CD, the fact that the melodies don’t grab you quite as firmly, that the intensity of the opener, “Me and Mia” isn’t really maintained, that a number of the songs actually don’t make you want to roll down your windows, scream at the top of your lungs, and maniacally bob up and down.
Maybe it is a higher standard to which I hold Ted, but I can’t just let him off the hook because he’s one of my secretly crushed-out rockist saviors. At the same time, however, Ted’s not going anywhere from my list of private unimpeachables – there’s only four or five bands for whom I maintain an ecstatic personal attachment (Ted, Radiohead, Fiery Furnaces, Drive-By Truckers, maybe Sleater-Kinney), and in my heart of hearts he can still do no wrong.

I Got Lists Like VH1

2004-07-31T05:28:00.000-04:00

Article 3.87 Section 12 of the Pop Critic Guidebook mandates that I must start a separate blog where I list my top albums and singles of the year. You can find it here.

Some notable low-ballin' -

36. The Streets - A Grand Don't Come for Free
Terrific lyrics, brilliant concept, but where are the tunes? The idea of listening to literature doesn't interest me unless Morgan Freeman is reading it, but that's essentially all I'm getting here, cuz the hooks are either nonexistent or weak as Skinner's upper torso. It's a major letdown from OPM, which certainly had novelty on its side but also sounded scrappier, more playful and unorthodox, the ragtag beats 'n' tings definitely a better fit for those shaggy-dog tales than A Grand's whole-cloth narrative, which would seem to demand a bit more fittingly resplendent backdrop (any chance I get to use resplendent, I'm takin' it). Basically, I decided I only have room in my life this year for one thematic monstrosity, and it's Blueberry Boat, which is loads more fun.

More later (Wilco, Iron and Wine, Franz, and Junior Boys)...

I Walked Home From the TCBY Each Night With No Fear

2004-07-30T13:22:00.000-04:00

Quick 'n' Easy Guide to Listening to the Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat

1. Press play

2. Listen for two and a half minutes

3. Press pause

4. Walk the dog, wash the dishes, check your email, dye your hair, volunteer at a soup kitchen, take a trip to the Pottery Barn, send out thank-you cards, make a dentist appointment, register to vote, read TV Guide, chew your fingernails

5. Repeat

Seriously, I don't understand how this album seems so daunting to so many people.

"I don't know where to begin."

"I can't make it through the first song."

"There's just too much going on."

"I've gotten lost and I can't find my way out."

"Send in reinforcements."

"Tell my mother I love her."

Yep, Blueberry Boat will forever be remembered as The Album That Blotted Out The Sun. Or not. Seriously, how hard is it to find something to grab onto here? By my count, there's about two dozen terrifically glittering pop songs spread across 13 tracks, if you listen at random to any point on the album, chances are you're no more than a minute away from hearing something joyous, dizzying, hilarious, endearing, exciting, or just plain rockin'. Admittedly, the opener, "Quay Cur," is a bit of a slow cooker, so maybe that's where the trepidation lies, but do yourself a favor today and spend some time with Blueberry Boat. You'll be glad you did.

I No Longer Hear the Music

2004-07-30T12:33:00.000-04:00

I'm having a really hard time getting into this new Libertines record. That's probably a bad sign, especially considering the kind of music they play isn't exactly the sort of stuff that takes weeks to reveal itself. I keep telling Lauren that 20 years from now Pete's prolly not gonna remember making this album at all. She thinks they're the bee's knees, and I was inclined to agree based on Up the Bracket, which was insanely derivative but also superb. Ha, listening to the CD right now and "The Saga" rips off the intro the REM's "Leave." "Can't Stand Me Now" is nifty and seemed to maybe herald a new direction for The Libs, but it's pretty much downhill from there. "The Man Who Would Be King" is nicely textured though lyrically kind of slight. Hmm, can't really say a whole lot about the rest. Seems like Lauren still plays Up the Bracket more than the new one. This is another bad sign.

One Faye Wong Fan Can't Be Wrong

2004-07-27T01:21:00.000-04:00

Lauren's studying Asian cinema this summer semester, and I've tried to watch as many of the films as possible with her. Our latest is Chungking Express, an oddly structured, typically madcap mid-90s Hong Kong romantic comedy presented in the US by Quentin Tarantino’s production company, Rolling Thunder. In his little informational postscript after the film, Quentin mentions that, unbeknownst to me, Chungking’s lead actress Faye Wong is a major pop star in her native country – Tarantino calls her Hong Kong’s equivalent to Madonna. While I can neither confirm nor deny the veracity of that statement, I can report to the uninformed that Faye Wong makes some truly gripping, genuinely evocative music, and is certainly more than deserving of whatever celebrity she enjoys overseas.

Of course, Quentin had to throw in the aside that just about every guy he knows who’s seen Chungking has developed a crush on Faye Wong, and so now Lauren thinks I’m smitten with her ‘cause of how quickly I went out in search of her music – just doin’ my job, y’know? Truth be told, I didn’t find Faye’s character in the film terribly appealing – her performance was quite good, but her subject was just a little too self-consciously quirky and purposefully enigmatic to be truly likable. Maybe it’s just Hong Kong’s own peculiar roadmap for romance, but personally I found the love tussle just plain wearying in its nonsensical restraint and forced irresolution (though the film itself proved undeniably delightful, especially for how it tackled well-trodden themes like loneliness and courtship in such unexpected and offbeat ways).

Faye Wong’s music, however, is another matter. In short, it’s great, at least judging from the one album I heard, 2000’s Fable. Faye has collaborated with the Cocteau Twins in the past, and their influence/kindred spirit is evident in her vocals, though hers are much more entrancing and suggestive than Liz Fraser’s, plus the music is nowhere near as gossamer or ephemeral. For the most part it’s reminiscent of trip-hop, the real shit too, not the thin Dido facsimile. This stuff is deep and substantial and expansive, and Faye goes heavy on the orchestras to boot, very Bjork-like in how she dispenses them (think “Isobel), often trailing behind and repeating the melody, especially on “Farewell Firefly.” The first five songs lull you into mellow, contemplative meditation, then Faye hits you square between the eyes with giddy, irrepressible perfection on “If You Were Unreal,” one of the sweetest, greatest pure pop songs I’ve heard in some time. Listening to it right now as I type makes me so retardedly happy I don’t know whether to smile, laugh, or cry.

Postscript -

It's such an eye-opening joy driving at night listening to music where you don't understand any of the words, just for how it makes you notice and marvel at surroundings you always take for granted. English-speaking tunes just fit so comfortably into the roadside scenery that they naturally become a part of it, hearing on our radios the same words that peer back at us from gas stations, billboards, and street signs. The normalcy of everything that meets the eye is constantly reinforced through the music, creating an isolationist mindset that never conceives of any other way. With Faye Wong angelically cooing God-knows-what over surprisingly sturdy trip-hop beats, the world outside the windshield takes on a markedly different hue. Her voice is clearer, purer, and truer than any all-night neon buzzing, so that everything in that brightly blurring landscape starts to feel alien, unimaginably weird. Where the fuck am I? I feel like the alien, set down in a strange land of commercial desolation and culture-less uniformity. In the calm-reasoning light of day I'm reminded the latter isn't true, and I can just appreciate Faye's wonderful vocal phrasing and slightly submerged but ever-present pop sense instead.

20 Songs Soon To Be Burned Into My Skull

2004-07-25T04:16:00.000-04:00

Madden 2005 Soundtrack :

Wylde Bunch - "Last Day of School"
New Found Glory - "This Disaster"
Earshot - "Wait"
Hoobastank - "Same Direction"
Ozomatli - "Saturday Night"
Jazze Pha - "Da Heavy Hittas"
Strata - "Piece By Piece"
Yung Wun - "Yung Wun Anthem"
Z-Trip feat. Soup of J5 - "Listen to the DJ"
The D.O.C. vs. Earshot - "The Madden Re-Match"
Will.I.Am - "Go!"
Hazen Street - "Fool the World"
Midtown - "Give It Up"
Alter Bridge - "Open Your Eyes"
Green Day - "American Idiot"
JR Ewing - "Time to Get Dirty"
The Hives - "Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones"
Mooney Suzuki - "Alive and Amplified"
Chevelle - "The Clincher"
Faith No More - "From out of Nowhere" (Throwback Track Powered by Rhino)
Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"

Analysis: Much more middling than last year, which ran a dizzying gamut of great hip-hop tracks (then brand-new Big Boi, Bubba Sparxxx, and Nappy Roots, plus Joe Budden and Bone Crusher) and completely execrable mall punk (Yellowcard, Gob, Adema). Punk obviously got an upgrade with The Hives and Mooney Suzuki (garage-punk but still), and it's nice to see the Ferdies even though I'm already beyond tired of "Take Me Out." But where's the high-quality hip-hop? Nice seeing Jazze Pha, and Z-Trip's worth inclusion, but c'mon, you couldn't find a way to get Young Gunz or T.I. or Twista involved? Inexcusable.

Anyone Can Play Neil Young's Guitar

2004-07-22T11:46:00.000-04:00

Is it just me, or is everyone trying to play guitar like Neil Young nowadays? Pearl Jam caught a bunch of flak back in the day for joining forces with 'ol Shakey to create insta-classic-rock, but PJ never actually sounded like Neil, never actually played their guitars exactly like him.

Fast forward to 2004, and everywhere you look, awkwardly overearnest, vaguely rootsy neo-trads have appropriated Neil's messy, buzzy, overamped guitar tone and beautifully inelegant playing style, exactly why I don't know, probably trying to artificially lend some of Neil's wounded animal grace to their own songs w/o having to think of a new way of doing it. Neil's guitar solos let you know this was a humble guy who was grappling with Big Problems, an Everyman ill-equipped to handle great burdens and challenges but resigned to give it a shot, knowing he would pour every ounce of his unworthy self into something that was doomed to failure. The solos are both a brilliant ruse demanding underestimation and a painfully heroic act of self-martyrdom, Neil skewering himself for failures that were wholly self-orchestrated. It was a distinctly lonely place those solos occupied, always Neil by himself fighting against the current, against the elements, against the other instruments, against the notion of what lead guitar was "supposed" to sound like.

And then you wonder why Allison Moorer, Jeff Tweedy, and David Bazan would want to manufacture those same struggles in their own music? All three want desperately to be taken seriously as artists of substance and considerable gravity, and all of them are very good at positing themselves as the lonely, tortured genius in the reluctant spotlight. Moorer on The Duel's "I Ain't Giving Up on You," Tweedy on AGIB's "At Least That's What You Said," and Bazan on Achilles Heels' "Keep Swinging" - in each case, it's all about stacking the deck overwhelmingly in the opposition's favor, then fighting back valiantly armed with nothing but a makeshift, rudimentary guitar.

You think cuz of this blonde mop that's on top that I've gone pop?!

2004-07-21T11:59:00.000-04:00

If you'da told me two years ago that I'd have a blog and my first real post would be about Brandy, I prolly woulda flung an Anticon CD at you. OK, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but even as recently as a year ago I was railing against the bullshit populism I felt was encroaching on rockcrit, and now half the time I sound like a hardliner myself, big-upping T.I. instead of Illogic, Gretchen Wilson instead of Jolie Holland, JoJo instead of Wilco (I'll stop now, promise). Have I just been drinking too much of the ILM Kool-Aid? I'd like to think that part of me was just unnecessarily biased against pop before and that now I try to give everything a fair shake, but honestly it kind of frightens me that I could do such a complete 180 on the whole dichotomy in such a short period of time.

I still think it's way too easy to defend a populist stance cuz you can always call out your underground assailants as elitists and then cling to the moral high ground of being a man of the people who doesn't insult the mainstream's intelligence. My girlfriend (henceforth Lauren cuz I'll mention her bunches on here) quite capably skewered me on this point recently in the middle of an overriding argument that I'd gone pop to be consciously anti-indie (if only she knew!), wondering how I could guilelessly defend the consumer choices of the average American music listener when I so frequently scoffed at those same people's choice of movies, television shows, books, etc. Not that I really scoff at the people themselves, but I am still pretty much an elitist when it comes to all other mediums besides music, and I betcha most other music critics are as well but never think about it. Honestly, how many rockcrits read Grisham or watch The Bachelor 2 or raved to their friends about The Bourne Supremacy? Certainly not me, but like Kanye I'm just the first to admit it.

Or maybe it's just "pop" music is inherently better than all other forms of popular entertainment. I'd like to think that's true, and listening to Ludacris, Kevin Lyttle, Los Lonely Boys, or Lloyd Banks certainly seems to corroborate that theory, but then again maybe I've just preconditioned myself to gravitate towards that stuff now, who knows.

There's loads more I could get into on this topic and plan to do just that sometime soon (meta-fun!), basically in terms of the pure pleasure of sound and whether other mediums offer that same kind of instant gratification that overrides any potential thematic shortcomings (b/c after all, don't we intellectual types watch movies and read books to get some kind of insight on something? Obv. it doesn't have to be some philosophical exposition, but most of the time we at least demand something that's gonna cause us to look at ourselves and our world a little differently, something that at least challenges us in some small way - of course, any movie involving Will Ferrell is automatically exempt from such qualifications).

Also, when Lauren and I were having that heated discussion on my pop-slutitude, she quite rightly took a detour into the stickly realm of misogyny, which is something I definitely want to revisit even though I know it's been done absolutely to death - ain't that what blogs are fer?!

Oh yeah, and somehow this was supposed to come back to Brandy. Erm, Afrodisiac is great and I was just thinking how much I like it better than Alicia Keys' last album and what that says about my listening habits now, when two years ago I would have cottoned to A. Keys' nu-soul way quicker than Brandy's Timbo-pop. I'm reviewing Afrodisiac for Stylus and so I've been thinking alot about it lately, obviously. More on that later, but for now I'm just marvelling at how many truly great, catchy, moving songs are on it - "Focus" "Turn it Up" "Finally" and "I Tried" especially.

Intro (3 White Angry Country Men)

2004-07-20T17:22:00.000-04:00

I've come to the realization that in order to be Taken Seriously as a Music Journalist (ignore obvious oxymoronic implications), one must have A Blog where one posts Serious And Trenchant Treatises On The State Of Popular Music. Or pictures of their cat.

For right now, however, I'm just gonna use the blog as a means to work out some of the ideas I have in my head, throw 'em against the wall and see what sticks, basically. Hopefully using the blog to grapple with some of my arguments and crackpot theories will help me better articulate those concepts in my actual writing.

Music writing's pretty much the only thing I'm good at (edit: Music writing's the only thing at which I'm good? Whatever). Anyway, there's a bunch of other great writers out there, and while they might not see me as competition, I do see them that way, albeit in a friendly way, and hence I'm always pushing myself to be a better music writer (notice that I don't say "critic" - I've always hated that term and anytime people ask me what I do and I try to make myself sound slightly more important than a customer service representative (which is my full-time job), I tell 'em I'm a "music writer" - maybe it's just me, but the term "critic" implies much more of a snooty, discriminating nature, someone whose job it is to discern what's good from what's bad - which is only part of what I do - a passer of judgments and most likely an inveterate grouch).