I have a fucking Dave Mathews Band song stuck in my head and I CAN NOT get it out.

If In Flames doesn’t work, I may have to take up the trepanation.

Fuck!

just finished this book last week. it is a must-read for anyone who loves music the way that I do. It’s unbelievable how true many of the passages read:

#1: on his love of GbV:

To say that I’m merely a fan of his music wouldn’t give my obsession the “Uh, you’re scaring me” heft it deserves. Remember the totals on my iTunes play count? That’s nothing. Not counting the Dayton trip, which promised to scorch my savings, I’d already spent more than one thousand dollars in the previous year on ephemera relating to the band. I have called one of my closest friends a dick for asking if Guided By Voices is a religious band. It has been suggested, by one of the few people who knows the depths of my fanship, that I’ve lost perspective where the band is concerned. To this I can only retort that I really don’t care, Greg.

#2: on listening to music in cars:

On a dreary Ohio morning in October 2004, I was banging on the steering wheel of a rented Hyundai and shouting the lyrics to the greatest song ever written. I am usually against displays of exuberance while driving in rentals, as I’m scared that a guy back at the agency is watching me on closed-caption spy-cam and laughing hard enough to make his Arizona Iced Tea come out his nose. I am also cowed by the potential scorn of other drivers. I know that whenever I look over and see some goon energetically mouthing the words to a song I cant hear, I assume the worst: Creed.

trent reznor is an exotic bird

So r and I were talking about the pitchfork music festival tonight after my supercool chi-town friend (henceforth IL) reminded me of it. I certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from going (I’m pretty ambivalent mostly, though it would be rad to see Sonic Youth, if only for historical purposes), but r’s super-indie rant is too good not to share.

k : Wow, IL was just all : “dude pitchfork omg”
k : I thought she meant the site, which is currently, predictably, all “Jenny Lewis is SOOOOO AWESOME!” Meh.
k : But she meant the music festival http://www.pitchforkmusicfestival.com/
k : it really is like an indie rock a palooza
r : indeed
r : it was pretty rock last year
r : but in chicago
k : j. ryan did the art, so that’s something.
r : also jenny lewis can suck it
k : no shit!
k : that’s what i say
r : dude, we hated her when she was in that wackass band
r : and we were totally over her in 1.5s
k : completely
r : and like “where is rainer maria, bitches”
k : yeah
k : who were rigoddamndiculously good, of course.
r : clipse?!?
k : haha yeah
r : when tha last time you heard it like this?
k : lol
r : i hate to say it
r : i dont like 80% of those bands
r : everyone is wrong right now
r : cat power = suck
r : clipse = decent
r : iron & wine = shut up hipster
r : girl talk = who??
r : grizzly bear = ^^^^
r : Battles = okay, awesome- this band rules
r : Professor Murder = who? kickass name, but who? Is he a relative of Prof. Griff?
r : New Pronographers = if only we were so lucky that they did this instead of music
r : stephen malkmus = was over you fifteen years ago
k : this is very getting posted
r : de la soul = its tha grind date baby
r : Of Montreal = go back north, rick, I mean, dick
r : Jamie Lidell = is this person from The Hills?
r : The Ponys = I forget
r : Ken Vandermark = gets points, but WAY too many fucking hipster fucks will be nodding their heads and tapping they toes
r : whew
k : yeah
k : that’s a lot of indie dismissiveness in one shot
r : did i mention that fuck cat power?
k : literally?
r : eww, no
r : Marshall’s singular songs and spellbinding vocals are accented by funky Memphis horns, strings, and muscular, swampy beats.
r : hey pitchfork, indie fucks are not allowed to use the word “funky”
k : yikes, that’s kinda true. that’s some Blender-ass shit
r : ugh
r : describing the new redhotchilipeppers or somebody
k :“It’s FUNKY! : ) : ) : ) Yay!!!!”
r : A++ super awesome fantastic!
r : !!!1!1!!!ONE1!!!
…
r : fuck
r : i have that stupid jtimberlake song in my head
r : fucking fuck
k : dude, that is sooo not indie
k : all your cred? totally gone.
r : its a fucking brainworm
r : trying to destroy me

I wonder if the unknowns on the list mean that r and I are losing our edge and don’t know people we should. That being said, the last 3 records I bought on Pitchfork’s recommendation were completely unlistenable. So, either I’m getting old or I’m just getting better at separating wheat from chaff. And there’s a damn lot of chaff.

For what it’s worth, both Jenny Lewis and Chan Marshall probably could manage to not annoy me, but, they haven’t yet. That’s cool, I guess… a lot of people do like them. That doesn’t make me wrong. But it doesn’t make them right either.

And for reals, “The Grind Date” was soo lame.

Yep. This is how I spend my nights.

*Sigh*

1. the avalanches - since i met you
2. burning airlines - mission:control!
3. crain - speed
4. the crystal method - vegas
5. desaparecidos - read music. speak spanish.
6. fiona apple - when the pawn…
7. fugazi - end hits
8. jimmy eat world - bleed american
9. jimmy eat world - static prevails
10. les savy fav - go forth
11. liz phair - exile in guyville
12. minus the bear - highly refined pirates
13. pixies - doolittle
14. the promise ring - nothing feels good
15. rainer maria - long knives drawn
16. refused - the shape of punk to come
17. the reputation - to force a fate
18. the roots - things fall apart
19. the shipping news - flies the fields
20. weezer - pinkerton

your turn. don’t feel constrained either way about twenty– I just couldn’t narrow it down further.

oh. my. god. for all you metal heads out there– wait for the breakdown:

1) Mr. Rogers. At a time when public broadcasting was under attack (much like today), Mr. Rogers, then in his thirties, went in front of the applicable appropriation committee and turned its scrooge chairman’s heart from stone. Absolutely stirring in delivery:

2) Marx Brothers. I’m not sure which one of the ‘brothers’ this is, but the artistry and creativity shown here blows my mind:

stupid elevator in my building made me listen to Sheryl Crow, ever so clever with her choruses:

“You don’t bring me anything but down.”

wait a minute, that reminds me of something….

“You eat everything I own, except my c-O-c-k!”

yeah, and you though i’d let you McGillites forget about that one.

If they hadn’t already, Korn has finally vaulted into the realm of self mockery. I mean, honestly, have you heard this shit? It’s hilarious…

A lone-ly life where no one understands you
But don’t give up because the music do
Music do! (x6)

Because the music do
And it is reaching inside you, forever preaching
Fuck you too
your scream’s a whisper
Hang on you twisted transistor

Music Do! (x4)

Uh, ok. Thanks for the pick me up there guys… as long as the music do understands me, I won’t, uh, give up, or anything.

The funniest part is at the end :

Hey you, hey you this won’t hurt a bit (THIS WON’T HURT A BIT!
THIS WON’T HURT!)
Says who says who? anesthetize this bitch (ANESTHETIZE THIS BITCH!
ANESTHETIZE!)

Yeah, those bolded parts represent the backing vocal, which is, of course, fully METAL-GRRRRRRRARAARRAR style and stuttered to the beat…

Fucking terrible. Enjoyably terrible.

just read a great article in the D.C. City Paper (btw: how irritating is it that there is one in DC and one in Baltimore and they can’t even share websites well) discussing a particular alt-porn director who has adopted a rather familiar punk rock name. Great Quote:

“The whole punk-porn thing is really just about fashion. If I put on a hat, chaps, and spurs and made a cowboy-porn movie, it wouldn’t make me a real cowboy.”

*Ian MacKaye* (singer/guitarrist for the evens/fugazi/minor threat) on Eon McKai (”alt-”porn director)

boy, you really showed her, huh:

Three Chicago musicians who worked regular jobs by day and rocked at night were killed when a young woman bent on ending her life barreled into their car on a Skokie street, law enforcement officials said Friday.

Jeanette Sliwinski, 23, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder after telling police investigating Thursday’s crash at Niles Center Road that she had been in a fight with her mother and “wanted to end it all,” authorities said.

you know, I have always felt that suicide is an unbelievably selfish, senseless, overly dramatic and overall reasonless act. but this really takes the cake as one of the most self-centered, thoughtless act I have ever heard. I can’t *possibly* imagine what the argument was about….

while some people in the community argue that most rock music is pointless and has little value, I personally believe that this selfish act has taken away even more than the three lives, it also has taken away valuable contributions to music itself.

[Edited: i'm sure I have heard of something more selfish, thoughtless, etc... again with the excessive hyperbole.]

“Quasimoto gettin more ass than toilet paper.”
independent hip hop keeps getting stranger and stranger– between madlib, mf doom, quasimoto — just about half the rap acts on stones throw…. people are out of they damn minds. as k says: “That is all.”

They’re the avant-garde mashup darlings of the interweb. Thanks to R, I was drawn in some time ago by a track from their “Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots” work, which blended The Flaming Lips with Public Enemy’s “By the time I get to Arizona” and fragments of MLK speech. We quickly got hold of the “Never Trust Originality” EP, which is every bit as awesome.

I picked up another 2 sets last night, “From Detroit to J.A.” and “A Night at the Hip-Hopera”. The former I haven’t tried out all of yet, but the latter is a mix of classic Queen tracks and modern rap/hip-hop from the likes of KRS-1, Kelis, ODB, De La Soul, Eminem Vanilla Ice, Aaliyah, Beastie Boys, Missy Elliott and a pile of others, not to mention clips from Aqua Teen Hunger force, Mallrats, and other such pop culture faves. I hear there was or is a scrap with Disney over the rights to the Queen music, though I don’t know details. Whatever though, the tunage is, for the most part, quite good. I skipped a few tracks, mostly because there are a number of Queen songs I don’t like at all.

Anyway these guys are something close to the ultimate musical expression of our generation — full of references that appeal to our endless love for trivia, plenty of beats and clever, non-obvious pairings which produce often surprising and exceptional new forms, all spewed over the net for your consumption.

The tunes are available via bittorrent linked from the Kleptones’ home page, so it’s all quite legit. I highly recommend all you kiddies check them out.

They also run a blog which I’ve linked to the right there, under Music, which has some worthwhile, if infrequently refreshed, material.