WHERE IS THE DANGER

Well she laughs when she wants like you do when you're 5 years old.
Säkert!: Allt som är ditt

NBC's Brian Williams, when did you stop beating your wife? I will soooo blog about your Limbaugh-liking ass, Williams. Limbaugh. Licking. Ass.

The Chicago Sun-Times' Jim DeRogatis reminds us of lots of Bangs quotes in honor of the 25th anniversary of the rock critic's death. While I'm not sure they cast Bangs in his best light-- "All blues singers are great liars"? "The ultimate sin of any performer is contempt for the audience"?-- they at least include that Clash/"flashbulb moment" line. None of it touches the Astral Weeks piece, though. (BTW, "Rock Never Forgets"? Was DeRo's headline editor kidding? If rock remembers, it wasn't really there.)

Deerhunter's Bradford Cox recently interviewed author Dennis Cooper. "During the course of our discussion we decided there was a real lack of danger," Cox tells the San Diego Union-Tribune. "There is no Throbbing Gristle or G.G. Allin or Patti Smith, there is nothing that represents what I really think Punk is about. I want things to be dangerous in an authentic, introverted, non-confrontational way."

James Brown: Live in Montreux, 1981 (video)

Julianne Shepherd: @ Pitchfork talking about Lil Wayne (column).

Philip Sherburne on Battles' "Atlas" and the DJ Koze remix. T. Rex!

Here is where I stop linking to my individual Forkcast items.


Sosa's 595th homer leads Rangers by Jays.
Pink: U & UR Hand

ETERNALLY GRATEFUL TO MY PAST INFLUENCES BUT THEY WILL NOT FREE ME

Hey there fuckface-uh. Hey there fuckface-uh.
Deerhunter: Spring Hall Convert/Hazel St. (4/4/07, Empty Bottle, Chicago)

"You guys are crazy, man. You're crazy loons."
- Deerhunter bassist Josh Fauver, after completing a delay- and feedback-drenched set of ambient tension and squalls of psych-rock release with an abnormally elongated frontman wearing an old-lady dress and dripping fake blood from his mouth and wiping fake blood on his crotch and fellating the microphone, after I mention where I write.

Check out Matthew Perpetua's more thorough accounting over at Fluxblog.


I don't want to talk to you anyway, loser.
Cool Kids: I Rock (I liked the title "Mikey Rocks" better-- then you've got your built-in Mikey fanbase-- but whatever)

Plus, my Crayon Fields track review and WTF track review at Pitchfork.

Um, weird bout of paranoia: The negativity in italics above isn't directed at the show or Fauver-- both were great, of course!

I'M JUST A BLUE-COLLAR GUY FROM BUFFALO

Sasha Frere-Jones gets serious like crazy.
Natasha Bedingfield: I Wanna Have Your Babies (mp3 at Obtusity)


Don Imus don't wanna kiss the bride, he just wants your lucky charms.
Tim Russert: Comedy Gold

There's an essay-length rant in me about this week's embarrassing Maureen Dowd columns, the concept of backstory in pop music, and basically how everybody is always obsessed with the wrong damn superficial things. You think I have time for that? Well, maybe, but instead I'm just going to humbly suggest you catch up on last night's Bill Moyers examination of the media coverage leading up to the war. Maybe it'll air again? UPDATE: Of course there's totally a snippet on YouTube.

Key points: Knight-Ridder stuck to its guns and kept reporting stories skeptical of Administration intelligence; the facts were out there, but the New York Times and Washington Post preferred to stick to big-name sources; Tim Russert would've included more skeptical voices on Meet the Press-- if only his phone had rung.

Oh, and pretty much everybody who got paid for telling us false things about the Iraq war is doing even better now. William Kristol and Peter Beinart have been rewarded with space in Time. Key Bush speechwriter Michael Gershon scored a Washington Post column. Thomas Friedman is still Thomas Friedman. Charles Krauthammer is still... well, I could tell you, but then he'd have to make a psychiatric diagnosis about you.


It was easy it was cheap GO AND DO IT.
Jarvis Cocker: Running the World

Elsewhere: My Arctic Monkeys album review, Lucky Soul track review, Aliens album review, Franz Ferdinand track review, and Ghosthustler track review on Pitchfork.

Over at TAPPED, Paul Waldman does superlative work debunking Roger Simon's small-minded mythologizing of Bernard Shaw, and expands on his point with some much-needed historical context here-- including David Broder's dumbfounding admission he's basically a world-class bullshitter (via Bob Somerby).


They come here alone, and they leave in twos.
The Teenagers: Homecoming

BE A MUSIC CRITIC, GET POWER OVER WOMEN?

Yeah, I've made love, yeah, I've been fucked-- so what?
The Smiths: Reel Around the Fountain (1983; live at the Hacienda)

The majority of my mailbag lately has been surprisingly supportive, as I just noted. Not all of it, of course:

From: antony@[redacted]
To: marc@pitchforkmedia.com
Date: Apr 20, 2007 9:29 PM
Subject: from antony

dear marc

i felt compelled to write after reading your disgusting review of Cocorosie's new album. did you even read the credits? for your information, i do not appear anywhere on the album. But besides that, I am writing to urge you to retire from "journalism", you have no gifts as a writer. why not explore an interest that brings joy to yourself and those around you, instead of just stewing in the bile of your own resentments towards others? you are a parasite among artists. please, please retire. Is your goal to make people feel sick? perhaps writing that "review" lent you the illusion that you have power over others, over women, over artists. Perhaps you are lacking in empowerment in your own frustrated life.

I recommend that you start to do something new.

antony



From: marchogan[at g mail dot com]
To: antony@[redacted]
Date: Apr 21, 2007 7:48 PM
Subject: Re: from antony

Dear Antony,

Thank you so much for the thoughtful note. Are you seeking a correction? To be honest, I never received a copy of the credits, but several other reviews from reputable sources also indicate you appear on the track on "Miracle," though you would clearly know best.

Are you saying it's not you, or merely that your appearance was uncredited?

If my facts are indeed wrong and need to be corrected, of course I will ask my editors to make the fix as soon as possible.

Thanks again for reading the review and taking the time to write, and I hope all's well otherwise.

Best,
Marc



From: antony@[redacted]
To: marc@pitchforkmedia.com
Date: Apr 22, 2007 4:10 AM
Subject: fyi

From: antony@[redacted]

Subject: from antony re: cocorosie review

Date: April 20, 2007 10:44:37 PM EDT

To: ryan@pitchforkmedia.com

dear Ryan Schreiber

I am writing in regards to the very unpleasant review of Cocorosie's new album that was printed in yesterday's Pitchfork.

I was bitterly disappointed when I read it. It was filled with inaccuracies. For instance, I do not even appear on the record, and yet Hogan snidely referred to a guest appearance he somehow imagined I had made.

But It is an album I would have been proud to be a part of. Please assign writers who are open and receptive to understanding the work of America's more challenging young artists, instead of printing reviews that try to cover up their lack of comprehension with bad wit and cynical one-upmanship. We desperately need artists who will take risks and put their hearts forward in this cultural climate, now more than ever. Why would you print a review that only seeks to oppress performers who are among those taking some of the biggest and most generous risks?

Please assign writers with some sense of vision to review Cocorosies work in the future. Marc Hogan, a financial analyst (!!), is completely in the dark about Cocorosie; he cannot even fathom their intent or the usefulness, the generosity, and the deep originality of their work. I remember the Pitchfork review of their last album in which the writer even admitted that he was panning the album simply because he didnt understand it. Cocorosie are a brave pair of visionary young Americans who are pushing the dialogue forward. They are treasured by their peers, many of whom are artists that you have written about with respect, and by audiences around the world. We all read Pitchfork, and rely on it as an important outlet of information for independent artists. Please rise to the challenge and represent Cocorosie fairly, instead of publishing checklists of incomprehension that are tinged with misogynist resentment.

I did send an email that was a little hot under the collar to Marc Hogan, which should be laughed at and disregarded. I send this now to you now in all earnestness.

yours sincerely

Antony Hegarty

I've sent an e-mail to the label and am investigating the possible factual error. Does anyone have a straight answer on this?

For the record, I've never worked as a "financial analyst," only as a lumpen financial journalist. On the other hand, what's wrong with people having, like, jobs?

The Mercury Prize is £20,000, which currently converts to $40,086.19 in U.S. dollars.

UPDATE!!!: Touch and Go has identified the guest artist on "Miracle" as French beatboxer Spleen. A Medill F for me; it's certainly true I shouldn't have assumed something without official confirmation. Other publications getting it wrong first is no excuse.

I do take exception with the label calling me "lazy," though. Before I checked other publications to confirm my Antony hunch, I read Touch and Go's official album description. Sample quote: "The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn is the 3rd ventricle of the CocoRosie liturgy." Gee, I'd really better get back to sifting through SEC filings...

Does that mean I'm one of those horrible people with "jobs"? Gross! Cooties! No valid opinions on pop music!

MY BLOG IS LIKE THE INTERNET... FOR LUDDITES

Sorry, it must still be the CR talking. Thank you for the unexpected support, unexpectedly non-batshit letter writers!

I had him pegged as more of a "Kokomo" guy, but whatever:

"D" is for "delightful," and try and keep your trousers on.
John McCain: Bomb Iran (Beach Boys cover)

A week earlier, ingeniously disingenuous Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan praised McCain for "sound[ing] like a serious man addressing a serious issue in a serious way" (via ThinkProgress).

At the same time, worm-tongued New York Times columnist David "Brooksy" Brooks was suggesting McCain might be "the candidate who is the most substantive, most mature and most consistent," Ezra Klein points out.

Best one-line response: "Just wait until his second term!" (Isaac Chotiner, writing in The New Republic's blog, The Plank)

On a more serious note (McCain's defense: I wuz joking-- WE KNOW! Maybe if you spent more time in a POW camp you'd understand the horror of war, or at least the negative foreign policy implications of acting like a total douche), somehow I only now saw the news of Flying Canyon frontman Cayce Lindner's untimely passing back in February. Sad and pointless. Why didn't you people listen to Flying Canyon's great self-titled album last year? Pitchfork's Brandon Stosuy called it "an erudite haze that foregoes caricature and wardrobe changes in favor of melody, inventive instrumentation, strong songwriting, and an honest, riveting charisma." You can still grab an MP3 of my favorite song from the album, "The Bull Who Knew the Ring," over at Raven Sings the Blues.


Slam your body down and wind it all around.
Los Campesinos!: You! Me! Dancing!
signed, sealed, etc.

Elsewhere: K-Punk interviews Simon Reynolds. Fascinating stuff, but me being me, a quibble: I take issue with (only) one of Reynolds' complaints about rockism, namely, that "any approach that fixates on the song" is contemptible. I like songs, and I like tracks, but from an Arctic Monkeys fan it seems uncharacteristically purblind to suggest liking songs is inherently bad. I suspect he might rephrase this if asked again. It's just as ridiculous to suggest that the song is an inherently awful form as it was for rockists to say the same about dance music, rap, et alia back in olden times. Worse, it's pointlessly elitist: We music critics may have time and the free music to appreciate textures, atmospheres, whatever, but many song-weaned ordinary people don't, and I'm not sure that makes them worthy of Reynolds' contempt. DAMN, REST IN PEACE APOLLO CREED.

At the Times, Nate Chinen reviews David Torn's Joe's Pub show.

PEOPLE IN LOVE LIE AROUND AND GET FAT

Art Brut never wanted us to end up like that. The new songs we haven't heard before are good!

Is everybody supposed to know now what the title to "Rusted Guns of Milan" (fan vid) means? I still honestly don't know that or why "18,000 Lira" is about red brigades and guys named Enrique. Probably a think piece in there on how knowing this information probably couldn't make me love the songs more. Imagine you're reading it.

Side note: We've got a little Deerhunter backlash developing, seems (link #1, link #2). It's like the smart, funny person version of the band's MySpace page! Hmm, just because a few people don't like something doesn't mean everybody else who likes (loves) (gets embarrassingly evangelical about) it is pretending, does it? Eek, or vice versa: my CocoRosie review today on Pitchfork (on an unrelated note, my Crayon Fields review ran today, too-- listen to them here).

Pretending to like stuff gives you warts, which your dad can usually help you get off with some Compound-W, but it's a hassle, and your dad isn't here. I understand there are also some topical treatments for "epidermotropic human papillomavirus", AKA genital warts, AKA not what Howie Day takes Valtrex for. HE LIKES 'EM TOTALLY SHAVED!!!

P.S. Matthew Fluxblog has posted UGK's offnotes-dug "International Players' Anthem" (feat. Outkast) in downloadable form. Yes that means you can download it.

P.P.S. An enlightening interview with skronky jazz-fusion guitarist David Torn, whose "tones and textures" you probably heard in The Departed (and whose new album, Prezens, is pretty stupendous).

THOU SHALT NOT LOOK OUT FOR NEXT BIG THINGS

Nor shalt thou backlash against a band simply for being called the Next Big Thing (see my Klaxons review today on Pitchfork). THESE "THINGS" JUST HAPPEN.

...Dudes, MTV totally mismarketed "electronica." Why wait until 1997? Thereby blowing their chance to sell a second second summer of love to stateside music fannies who mostly still don't know such a thing took place the first second time. Or they could've at least waited until 1998 to blow up Keith Flint-- diamond anniversary! On somebody's damn chain.

Instead all I got is this "lousy" Amp comp. Ya dig?


Truckasaurus: Angels Sound Like Bottle Rockets (link)
Guess here the only thing that ain't blue is the sky.


Neon Neon: Trick for Treat (link)
Guess again, Richard the Turd.

FOUR IS A MAGIC NUMBER, BUT SO IS FIVE

"...forget racism, what strikes me about our media elite [is] how profoundly stupid they are."
- Atrios, 4/13/07


Meant to weigh in on the Don Imus dust-up. Y'all hear this shit? Rich, powerful, unexceptional white guy-- crony of other rich, powerful, unexceptional white guys-- gets booted out of a job for talking like a cracker. And he's not even politically conservative? Bro got famous with booze and coke streaming out his nose!

Jesus, the way Frank Rich tells it, it's almost worth telling. Free speech under fire! In a slow post-holiday week, too. Rich Boy, learning from David Brooks, makes a show of admitting his own hypocrisy in order to distract from his other hypocrisies. But c'mon now, scribes and Pharisees: First off, I don't care whether Imus stays on the air or not, but what he said was uniquely fucked. Second, Imus has been airing significantly more hateful thoughts about people of (sorry!) much greater importance for years now, getting his rocks off with the fraternity and poisoning your discourse. Third, Imus's firing shouldn't have a chilling effect on free speech because Don Imus is uniquely, profoundly stupid.

Oh I know we're all actually sitting around in our parlors calling various women "nappy headed hoes." Wait, no, we're NOT. It isn't as if this phrase is something "everybody thinks" but most ppl are too politically correct to say. It's not even the kind of language a traditional bigot like South Park "n----- guys" Mark Furman or Michael Richards might find accidentally running out of their mouths. It's totally weird. About anyone. How did these words even get in a man like Imus's brain? The Rutgers basketball team's blamelessness helped them win over the media, but that isn't why the insult was so disturbing. Guy even looked all smirky and proud of himself as he was warming up to deliver his new phrase (vid).


Only reason I come around is for the double-dutch.
Lil Mama: Lip Gloss

Back in the reality-based community, this is how the "Gang of 500" who run our national political discourse like to talk about everyone all the time. Especially women, but especially Democrats. Over at The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby remembers Imus "always" calling Hillary Clinton-- i.e., the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination-- "Satan" ("Satan"!) and dubbing Al Gore-- i.e., the man who was right all along about the two biggest issues of our time, Iraq and global warming-- simply "the most evil man on the planet." A more dysfunctional press corps could hardly be imagined. If a major political commentator were to use either phrase to describe John McCain or Rudy Giuliani-- or, more revealingly, Jack Welch-- do you think frequent Imus guests like Tim Russert, Jeff Greenfield, and Chris Matthews would still show up on that honky's show? Yet they kept hanging with Mr. Imus, at least until all us meddling non-millionaires had to go and get our race/gender panties in bunches.

Fact is, these and other figures of the Washington Establishment share the same hateful views, which aren't far removed from batshit Ann Coulterism. Our pundits would rather be Howard Stern than Walter Cronkite; "liberal bias" is an outmoded and rarely applicable term these days not because of FOX, but because of a deep-seated animus among the likes of the Washington Post, New York Times, and NBC toward all signs of intelligent life-- particularly from anybody linked to icky slicky Blowjob Bill. Bummer everyone who actually wants a career writing about this stuff is too desperate to work for those pubs to expose their prospective employers' journalistic malfeasance, huh?


"My daddy mentions me in his New York Times columns."
Rich Boy: Boy Looka Here

So you may not know that prominent Iraq war critic and former Democratic aide Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, has called Hillary Clinton "witchy," a "stripteaser", and, to him perhaps worst of all, "ambitious", even falsely claiming hubby Bill has called her an "uppity woman." You may not know Matthews' long history of unprofessional petulance toward Gore: calling the former veep Bill Clinton's "bath tub ring", or a man who "doesn't look like one of us... he doesn't seem very American, even", or someone who would "lick the bathroom floor" to be President and wears troubling, troubling suits ("My joke is, “I'm Albert, I'll—I'll be your waiter tonight'").

You also may not know that, beginning in 1997, ostensibly liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd for years wrote columns from the point of view of Gore's "bald spot"-- including a pre-election column on Nov. 5, 2000 called "I Feel Pretty." Now she complains a lot about Bush and interviews billionaires who accuse Hillary Clinton of being "ambitious." Aww.

Further, you may not know that Dowd wrote about seriously substantial issues like health care and Al Qaeda during the all-important summer of 1999, when the stage was getting set for the 2000 election. Wait:

July 28: Dowd described her recent lazer eye surgery.
August 1: Dowd reviewed the movie "Runaway Bride."
August 4: Dowd discussed a Talk magazine piece about the Clintons' marriage.
August 8: She interviewed Bob Dole on the prospect of being "first gentleman."
August 11: She compared the Talk magazine piece about the Clintons with an auction of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia.
August 15: Will Warren Beatty run for president?
August 18: Bush and the question of youthful drug use
August 22: Bush and the question of youthful drug use
August 25: Dowd reviewed a Showtime movie about Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas.
August 29: She ruminated on the life story of John McCain. "Never have so many men wanted to run," she mused, "to prove they are worthy to larger-than-life dads."
September 1: "I ran into Kato Kaelin the other night," she wrote—at the start of a piece about Monica Lewinsky's fashion business.
September 5: Dowd penned a review of the Paris, the new Las Vegas casino-hotel.


Airplane food was on the plane, airplane coffee too.
Karin Strom: Klaustrofobi
(plus great remixes over at Discobelle)

You may not even know that Frank Rich himself, the former theater critic who so skillfully bobbed and weaved on the Imus issue this weekend-- the devilish wag who makes you so happy in his Bush-bashing Sunday missives-- is the same dude who in 2000 called Gore "about as different from [Bush] as J. Crew and Banana Republic" under the headline "Survival of the Fakest", who mocked Gore's focus on actual policy ("Dingell-Norwood, anyone?") and pronounced the then-veep "the truly stupid one"; Rich is the shameless schmuck who even recently, in a column admitting An Inconvenient Truth is right, found it far more notable (troubling!) (phony!) that the film includes multicultural audiences, people who laugh at Al Gore's jokes, and the fact Al Gore once owned a gun. Did you know Rich helped make up the falsehood that Gore falsely claimed he and Tipper were an inspiration for the film Love Story, even though the story's author said the Gores really *were* an inspiration? Rich probably still thinks Al Gore said he invented the Internet. "Frankly, that's Rich."

Always focused on the big issues, today Rich Boy is miiighty concerned over Imus's canning. "If we really want to have this conversation" about the ugliness of the disgraced jock's words, Rich muses, "it also means we have to have a nonposturing talk about hip-hop lyrics, Borat, South Park and maybe Larry David." The fuck? I'm all in favor of Rich, Imus, Coulter, or any other moron having freedom of speech-- in the privacy of their homes, or on sidewalks and subway platforms (wild-eyed and spittle-flecked, haranguing passers-by)-- but the biggest difference between Imus's brand of humor and the stuff Rich mentions, aside from the fairly huge distinction between first-person speech and character-driven art, is that Imus's joke wasn't funny. At all. Who could defend it? As Different Kitchen notes, conservatives too are blaming the Imus brouhaha on rap. Do you think this man listens to rap? Does Michelle Malkin?



My dad models SN3 not HO scale but pretty close.
Tokyo Police Club: Cheer It On
(Ryan Dombal's take at Blender)

Borat looks at the world from the perspective of a casually offensive outsider in order to highlight our own casually offensive ridiculousness (part of the joke is the fact we even have to write all these big serious words about it, let alone the fact that kneejerk, joke-missing tuttutters like Frank Rich and David Brooks despise it)-- though, as Nick Sylvester notes, sometimes a blowjob joke is just a blowjob joke. South Park ventures into taboo territory on the premise that "either everything's OK, or nothing is"-- the freedom to transgress is what separates us from the Taliban (cancel Family Guy and the terrorists have won!). Larry David is pretty OK, I guess.

The rap question gets a whole lot more complicated. I've already touched on it in dealing with Devin the Dude's sometimes hateful new album, but I do get uncomfortable about the misogynistic/homophobic language and attitudes of yr fave rap clips. When Lil' Wayne is treating his objects like women, man, on the "It's Me Bitches" remix or on the really exciting so far Da Drought 3 mixtape, I squirm even as I can't help but be dazzled by his verbal acuity and charismatic delivery. In rap, you can kinda write stuff off as being spoken in character, but maybe it's just a music that-- like South Park, or more like the way rock used to be-- requires transgression to thrive. It's hard for rap to be good without being "bad"; that's why M.C. Hammer became instant kitsch (surely it wasn't the pants). Rap's moral ambivalence probably isn't going away anytime soon, but it doesn't have the least thing to do with the rich white guys at the top of the Washington, D.C. political journanimalism establishment being fuckwits.

Something else you probably didn't know: Dick Cheney was a major-league Imus fan. Yeah, big time. Cheney's spokeswoman once explained, "He has the same sense of humor that Imus has. He thinks Imus is funny. He gets good guests on. And he asks good questions. It's not really strategic or complicated. Not everything we do has to work on 50 different levels." (She totally loses me with that last part.)


You dudes gotta stand in the mirror backwards cuz you can't face yourself.
My boy John Mayer, circa 1999

Look, the only reason this matters is because if we don't understand the forces that have driven our discourse for the past 10-plus years, we can't begin to push back against them. The same hateful millionaire world view will be inflicted upon Obama, Edwards, or Richardson should they defeat Clinton, just as it was upon "phony," "French-looking," "wind-surfing," "effete" John Kerry-- another recent Imus victim (vid). In any other profession, such malpractice would've put these pundits out of a job long ago.

When Chris Matthews made the following statement last month, which fearless speaker of controversial thoughts might he have imagined nodding in cowboy-hatted agreement?

"You know, somewhere out in the Atlantic Ocean, I think there might be a giant, green, ugly, horny monster. A gigantic, gigantic monster of anti-Hillary, and anti-woman Hillary, anti-liberal woman Hillary, some real ferocious beast out there that says no matter what happens between now and Election Day, they're not going to let her win. Men, some women, are just not going to let this woman, this woman win the presidency. I don't know whether that monster's out there. All men I meet are afraid to talk like that. You only hear criticism of Hillary from smart, college-educated women. They're the ones that always have a problem with her now."

HEY PUNDIT CLASS, RAPPERS AREN'T THE ISSUE HERE.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TOUCH MY GIGANTIC MONSTER?


...As for Wonkette, she doesn't deserve to live.
Husker Du: New Day Rising and It's Not Funny

Elsewhere: Kelefa Sanneh compares Nine Inch Nails' noisy new Year Zero to '90s cyberparanoia.

Eric Harvey ponders Grindhouse, "art-enjoyment-context," and the Washington Post's novel panhandling experiment involving acclaimed classical violinist Josh Bell.

My Love of Diagrams review over at Playboy; my Mice Parade review at Pitchfork.

THIS POST INTENTIONALLY LEFT UNFUNNY

I don't deal well with this stuff.

Words from a poem by the late Kurt Vonnegut:
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.

Words in the inbox from the Edwards campaign:
"Our dearest wish is that this day could start again, with the promise of these young people alive. Knowing that cannot be, our prayer is for God's grace and whatever measure of peace can be reached on this terrible day."

Be brave, clench fists.

"Poo-tee-weet?"

GOD HELP THE CRITIC OF THE DAWN

Holy fuck! It's yr offnotes RIFF MARKET Status Ain't Hood Quarterly Report!

Filing late due to an ongoing investigation into stock-options accounting improprieties (isn't everybody):

HOT CUSP ACTION
Air France EP
Annika Norlin: Sakert
Art Brut: It's a Bit Complicated Advance EP
Blitzen Trapper: Wild Mountain Nation
The Capstan Shafts: Her Versus the Sad Cold Eventually
The Clientele: God Save the Clientele
The Crayon Fields: Animal Bells
Dan Deacon: Spiderman of the Rings
Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity
Good/Bad/Queen LP
Gruff Rhys: Candylion
Gui Boratto: Chromophobia
Lil' Wayne: The Greatest Rapper Alive II
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous
Marnie Stern: RED HOT RIFFS
The Manhattan Love Suicides: S/T
Nas: Hip Hop Is Dead
The Postmarks: The Postmarks
Ricardo Villalobos: Fiddy Zizzy
Stars of the Lid: And Their Refinement of the Decline
Studio: Yearbook
A Sunny Day in Glasgow: Scribble Mural Comic Journal
Young Jeezy: The Inspiration (esp. those three tracks)

somebody ysi the complete "D*I*R*T*Y Edits" comp plz OK thnx

still liking more than i should: Cheeseburger (band and food, always pay extra for the avocado)

do i like teh Soft Circle? somebody plz tell me what to think plz

PROVISIONAL, HIGHLY FLEXIBLE, DON'T PRETEND THIS IS YOURS CUZ IF THERE'S A JOKE IT'S PROBABLY ON YOU GUYS HAW HAW CUZ Y'SEE IT'S MY BLOG TOP TEN LIST

10. Feist: The Reminder
w/ a bullet w/ serious butterfly wings w/ extra ranch. I don't like ranch.


9. Lucky Soul: The Great Unwanted
Indiepop album of the year.
[Matthew Perpetua track review here.]


8. David Torn: Prezens
Whatever guys I'm just a pop critic.
[April 17 Joe's Pub gig info here; my Pitchfork track review here.]


7. Sally Shapiro: Disco Romance
Indiepop album of the year.
[My too-academic Pitchfork review here.]


6. Twilight Sad: Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters
Anthemic-emo-shoegaze album of the year. Yes I've heard of Arcade Fire.
[Mark Richardson's Pitchfork review here; my Pitchfork EP review here.]


5. Panda Bear: Person Pitch
Brian Wilson blah blah yawp yup-yup!
[Mark Richardson's Pitchfork review here; my massively blog-hyped Playboy review here.]


4. The Field: From Here We Go Sublime
Lionel, you *are* the droid we're looking for.
[Jess Harvell's Pitchfork review here; Mark Richardson's Pitchfork column here.]


3. Battles: Mirrored
Someday Dave Maher will use this as at-bat music in his major-league debut, and some poor schmuck on Waveland Ave. will go home without a face. (Wait, is Dave a Sox fan? Shit.)
[Pat Sisson's Tribune profile here; my Spin review forthcoming.]


2. LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
Talk to me here ppl.
[Mark Pytlik's Pitchfork review here; Tom Breihan's Status Ain't Hood interview here.]


1. Deerhunter: Cryptograms/Fluorescent Grey double-LP.
Fuck you, this is an album.
[My Pitchfork reviews here and here.]


"Watch this space" for hot quarterly traxx reportage later.

Maybe.

DEFINITELY NOT, ESPECIALLY NOT IN PUBLIC

Probably everybody except me already figured out the key to this is just to post something-- even if you could post something longer, rantier and less coherent if only you waited a week until you had an hour. So.

Now, three months after Cryptograms, with baseball season underway etc. "etc." "'etc.'", finally something is here to answer the one question weighing on the minds of everybody who gave Modest Mouse the No. 1 record in the country: "Why does the cast of Stomp want to steal my carbon?"

OK, "everybody" maaaybe equals Fritz.


That ain't no hockey team, it's a circus berzerkus.
Lil' Wayne: Upgrade U + Top Back freestyle

CHOKE ON YR BLUE WHITE AND SCARLET HYPOCRISY

See spin. A few days ago Bob Herbert had me steaming over, among other things, political journalists' readiness to accept a political tactic that signifies "substance"-- in this case, John Edwards' decision to go into detail about his health care plan a million years before the election-- as genuine substance.

See spin run. David Broder for years now has made himself a seemingly unwitting punchline by always favoring sweet, glorious "bipartisanship" over, well, any actual stance on any actual issue. As I posted earlier, Edwards has lambasted his rivals for not taking the unusual (and potentially imprudent) step of detailing how exactly they will achieve universal health care-- assuming they, like Edwards and Barack Obama, support it. Naturally, the Dean is on the case!

BRODER: [O]f late, Obama's soaring rhetoric has left some of his audiences hungry for more substance from the senator. That was the case at a March 24 health-care forum in Las Vegas, where Obama promised to achieve universal coverage as president but had to admit that—unlike former senator John Edwards of North Carolina—he had not yet formulated a plan for getting there. And it was the case again Wednesday.

As I explained previously, there are perfectly good reasons for not going into specifics the way Edwards has done. And it's not as if Obama hasn't expressly stated his support for universal health care, something Edwards himself declined to do just four years ago. But one very smart reason for Edwards to talk about the substance of his plan is so he can talk about his own "substance," which had been a liability for him before (incessant Dem-feminizer Maureen Dowd calls him "the Brecht girl"). It's interesting and depressing that the most experienced, supposedly best qualified Washington pundits don't even seem to mention this fact.

Sort of like how they assume that Matthew Dowd not having a book out means he doesn't have a financial incentive to distance himself from Bush.


No, *I'm* laughing straight to the bank with this.
(Loudon Wainwright III: Motel Blues)

On the other hand, plenty of conservatives aren't even bothering to engage with the specifics Edwards has provided, preferring to party like it's 1992 (who wouldn't?). Matthew Yglesias catches David Boaz suggesting Edwards "supports a national health care system that would deny families the right to choose their own doctor." That's "straight-up false," Yglesias explains. "Nothing in Edwards' plan would do that."


Skin-tight pants and MySpace hair!!!
(Cub: New York City)

JARVIS COCKER IS NOT ON A COUCH EATING BON BONS (Pitchfork interview by Scott Plagenhoef)



"Fuck the Kooks."
(Lucky Soul: Add Your Light to Mine, Baby)

UGK Feat. Outkast: International Players Anthem (stream via Sean Fennessey)


Can't you see he's cryin'?
(Leonard Cohen: The Stranger Song)

Mikrofisch: The Kids Are All Shite (download via Idolator)


I don't lie awake at night with thoughts of river depth.
(Ludacris and The Jackson Five: Woozy/ I Am in Love)

Reviews: Cloud Cult in Pitchfork, Adult. in Playboy.com


Year's best vid so far? Get excited not innocuous guys.
(Dizzee Rascal: Sirens)

LOVE YOU GIRL BUT I'M ADDICTED TO DEM HOES

As if you have a choice.

Not the kind of blog for excuses instead it's a look back at The Week That Wasn't ok? Business.

Matthew Fluxblog and I went to a show with polite Englishmen and awesome barefoot drummers (plus birthday cake within salivating range). I neglected to post anything. Do you see?

The Cold War is over, kids! Some ppl said I don't like Cold War Kids because Cold War Kids are blog-hyped evangelical Christians even though my review specifically says that isn't (informal English for "is not") why (oh but it's so "truthy") and even though CWK say they're "definitely not" evangelical Christians, "especially not in terms of the band" whatever that last part means (if they deny it three times I will feel really bad though) OH MY LOVE WE BOTH GO DOWN TO HECK TOGETHER (FEAT. T.I.) [KOMPAKT; 2007]


John Darnielle can really rock Saddam Hussein's ass.

Tom wrote great stuff about Snow Patrol, whom I like too (my latest unenthusiastic review notwithstanding), but he also made me contemplate seppuku-- look out below SO many wrongness levels ("This is why Karl's so badass"). David Gregory don't ever dance again or else I will blog about you. So help me I will blog about your ass, Gregory, you don't even know.


Yeah but Newt Gingrich doesn't care about Spanish people.

Started reporting an article for BW about labels giving away their back catalogues even as majors fight all free-giving (or even scrapping pointless DRM douchebaggery) but then I decided to quit. Had in mind Slabco, which served a plunderphonic niche that was largely unfilled and now makes money recording for commercials; next up indiemp3 notes that Bubblyworld is also opening the vaults. Idea was (and other ppl thought of this first) that it makes sense for smaller labels to do this because otherwise their music would be out of print and why not at least let fans hear it? More to come, I'm sure.

C'MON, CHECK

That Was Fast: The new Timbaland/M.I.A. track leaks. Kelefa Sanneh writes smart things about the Tim album. Especially dig the "Bounce" detail. But the reason "Give It To Me" isn't as good as the great Timbaland singles is 'cause nobody really wants to listen to songs about producer beefs. Still pretty good though.


Matthew Yglesias makes typos not errors of judgment.

MY RESPECT

Thanks to Michelangelo Matos for reminding me I may not have been wrong to think of the Pierces as luxe indie-pop for the "Sex & the City" crowd, but I was definitely wrong to dismiss them for it.


Heroin my wife my life??? NOPE boring.

YEEA DAT'S RITE C'MON

I also wrote a couple of things this week: Land of Talk review in Pitchfork, Ponys review on Playboy.com. And went to a Justice listening party.


I don't want ppl to find poop in their stairwells here guys srsly.

STOP YOUR BUSINESS


Lucky Soul are my honey lover to the max.

YES NEW ART BRUT yes Taco Bell make a run to the border. Deerhunter really do sound better on vinyl (I can even understand the lyrics on "Lake Somerset" the way I can on that non-album version making the file-sharing rounds)-- though I wonder how many ppl will skip side two. And why is this even an argument anymore? OK THNX BYE.