"IT'S WHAT'S IN THE GROOVES THAT COUNT"

Minister of New New Super Heavy Funk
Abbas Kiarostami: Close Up (selection)

Most of these 45s are pretty famous, actually, although I left a bunch more because I wanted to see if any would play OK first. 2/$1 (negotiated for a tiny bit less) at the thrift store (really more of a storefront-- there's no inside) in my little neighborhood here in Brooklyn:

- Jackie Wilson: "I Get the Sweetest Feeling" b/w "Nothing But Blue Skies" (1968, Brunswick)
- Marvin Gaye: "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" b/w "You're What's Happening (in the World Today)" (1966, Tamla/Motown)
- Sly & the Family Stone: "Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin" b/w "Everybody Is a Star" (1969, Epic)
- Fontella Bass: "Rescue Me" b/w "Soul of the Man" (1965, Checker/Chess)
- Marvin Gaye: "Let's Get It On" b/w "I Wish It Would Rain" (1973, Tamla/Motown)
- Candi Staton: "Stand By Your Man" b/w "How Can I Put Out the Flame" (1970, Fame)
- Solomon Burke: "Got to Get You Off My Mind" / "Peepin'" (1965, Atlantic)
- Gladys Knight and the Pips: "Midnight Train to Georgia" b/w "Window Raising Granny" (1973, Buddah)
- Stevie Wonder: "Superstition" b/w "You've Got It Bad Girl" (1972, Tamla/Motown)
- Sam & Dave: "Soul Man" b/w "May I Baby" (1967, Stax)
- Otis Redding: "I've Got Dreams to Remember" b/w "Nobody's Fault But Mine" (1969?, Atco)
- Archie Bell and the Drells: "I Could Dance All Night" b/w "King of the Castle" (1975, Tsop)
- Jean Knight: "Mr. Big Stuff" b/w "Why I Keep Living These Memories" (1971, Stax)
- Solomon Burke: "You're Good for Me" b/w "Beautiful Brown Eyes" (1963, Atlantic)
- The Contours: "Do You Love Me" b/w "Move Mr. Man" (1962, Motown)
- The Lovin' Spoonful: "Daydream" b/w "Night Owl Blues" (1966, Kama Sutra)
- James Brown: "Papa Don't Take No Mess Part I" b/w "Papa Don't Take No Mess Part II" (1974, Polydor)
- Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" b/w "Give a Little Love" (1967, Tamla/Motown)
- The Jackson 5: "The Love You Save" b/w "I Found That Girl" (1970, Motown)
- Wilson Pickett: "Don't Fight It" b/w "It's All Over" (1965, Atlantic)
- Carla Thomas: "I Like What You're Doing (To Me)" b/w "Strung Out" (1969, Stax)
- Aretha Franklin: "Jump" b/w "Hooked on Your Love" (1976, Atlantic)
- Sam & Dave: "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby" b/w "Small Portion of Your Love" (1967, Stax)
- Isley Brothers: "Who Could Ever Doubt My Love" b/w "Take Some Time Out for Love" (1966, Tamla/Motown)

They're super dirty, but most of them play OK with some cleaning.

PLUS: Bonus Xpost:

If we shoot a video to this one, I'm gonna have to get in the gym real hard and get my LL Cool J on on in this one.
Jens Lekman: "Into Eternity" (Live in Bloomington, Ind.)

P.S. Why do I laugh at Weezy, but Britney Spears' "Fillin Me Up" makes me blush all over? Da Drought Is Over Pt. 4! What took him so long? Also, "Duffel Bag Boy" (via Intensities in Ten Suburbs).

EVERY TIME WE KISS IT'S LIKE AN INSIDE JOKE I ALWAYS MISS

OFFNOTES is ridiculously proud to premiere a new remix by the Tough Alliance. It's true: Gothenburg, Sweden's punkest electro-pop sluggers have remixed Jonas Game's excellent, Nirvana fan-baiting stadium strummer, "New City Love". Come as however the fuck you are.


The data for a decision in any given situation is infinite.
Jonas Game: New City Love (TTA remix)

omg omg omg

indie-pop collaboration of the year?

MAKE IT HAPPEN!

here's the original for you slackers out there, we'll meet at your place:


Cheating like a Trojan, and hiding like a Trojan.
Jonas Game: New City Love (cross-posted from Pitchfork)

IT'S WEIRD THAT CHAIRS EVEN EXIST WHEN YOU'RE NOT SITTING IN THEM

Just for the record, "nonplussed" doesn't mean "not impressed."
Kermit the Frog: The Rainbow Connection

In an e-mail, a smart acquaintance recently likened modern politics to independent rock's big grunge payday. The Democratic party is an embarrassingly wimpy, centrist organization, the friend says; he's an indie dude who came up in the 1990s, so there's no use talking about "participating to change it from within." Seeing as we were probably in agreement about our ideals if not our politics, I decided it would be better to post my thoughts here than to shoot back an annoying e-mail. No point debating someone with whom you already pretty much agree, after all.

There are plenty of ways the parallel makes perfect sense. Obviously, yes, on an individual level a deep-pocketed political organization funded by interest groups will be nearly as hard for one person to change as one of the humongoid, incomprehensibly stupid major record labels. More importantly, though, in both cases good-hearted people shoot themselves in the fucking foot.

Indie rock is defined by its "independence", so its fans are reflexively contrarian, notoriously backlash-prone. Liberals can be the same way. Where part of the point of American Idol is that everyone (even indie-rock fans) watches it, and Republicans have been only too glad to line up behind the wealthiest village idiot, indie-rock fans volubly dismiss later albums by their favorite bands, and liberal politicans and pundits make it a point of pride to shore up their nonpartisan cred-- which for Joe Lieberman (and the previous editorship at The New Republic) essentially means becoming a Republican. For many individuals, and certainly hotshot center-left columnists like Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, this independence means sighing, "A pox on both houses." In 2000 it meant Ralph Nader. And John McCain.


Also, the whole "comprises" the parts. A band is not "comprised of" anything.
The Crayon Fields: Do It Right/Helicopters (live)

I guess I'd kind of unwittingly assumed everyone else had the same epiphany as I did during the post-9/11 phase of the Bush Administration: Sometimes, it's OK to take sides, because one side's actions are clearly hurting people. It's less "lesser of two evils" than "the perfect is the enemy of the good." I forget that for people whose first election wasn't Bush v. Gore, particularly those who reached political maturity when the post-Nirvana sweepstakes was laying waste to independent scenes, this road to Damascus might be less evident. And for good reason, too.

Here's the thing. I write all the time about both politics and music on this blog, and I've clearly devoted my career to the latter over the former, but what's at stake in these issues is, I'm sorry, a whole lot more important than the loss of some really great bands. The analogy includes a flawed assumption; democracy isn't the same as business (apologies to Larry Kudlow). Kids in schools, old people who need medicine, families in whatever countries some chickenhawk wants to bomb, young women who aren't ready for a baby, gay couples who want basic civil rights, working folks who deserve a basic living wage, etc., etc., are all affected by who is in charge in the White House. It hasn't been particularly cool to care about these things in my lifetime, but it's true.


I know a place where diamonds never fade away.
Fabolous: Make Me Better (feat. Ne-Yo, produced by Timbaland)

And stuff won't magically improve when Bush leaves office. The next generation of Republican presidential candidates is even worse, writes Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria (via Brad DeLong). The race for the nomination has turned into "an exercise in chest-thumping," according to Zakaria. "The competition to be the tough guy is producing new policy ideas ... that range from bad to insane," he opines.

Typical, naturally, of the conflicted indie/left relationship with both politics and commerce is the Arcade Fire. Like John Mayer, the Montreal indie-rockers make lots of allusions to politics on their newest record without ever coming down conclusively on a side; they "don't want to live in America no more," but they're not so much participating in a debate as opting out of one. Artistically defensible, of course, but if extended to a personal level fairly selfish, given the way democracy works (i.e., not like a major label -- i.e., what separates democracy from other forms of government is people voting, even occasionally for a turd sandwich).

Neon Bible benefits from major distribution and boasted a marketing campaign so good it was ripped off by R. Kelly. But the Fire have it both ways (neither way) on this, too: "Marketing campaign?" Win Butler laughs when asked about it in a Pitchfork interview, prompting Amanda Petrusich to seek a different phrase. The band debates even doing publicity at all, according to Rolling Stone, which quotes multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Perry: "We're trying to navigate a culture where people manufacture a lot of garbage. The goal is not to sell the most records or be the most famous. I think everybody in our band thinks we're trying to do something that's real and has some lasting value to it."

...OK, I'm basically just jealous of Win's recent sinus surgery. Like I said, my friend and I were probably pretty much in agreement to start with. Pass the Claritin-D.


It's a clumsy image but it encapsulates the playfulness of that record and its blend of sexuality and emotionally stunted yet self-aware infantilism.
Billy Bragg: Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards (via Steve Gozdecki)

RUDY GIULIANI IS THE ANTICHRIST

Snarky asides help to pay my bills.
The Tough Alliance: Silly Crimes

"Technological change is always a Faustian bargain," the late media theorist Neil Postman often said. For example, the automobile gave us the freedom to travel long distances quickly and independently, but it devastated urban downtowns and created sprawling exurban megalopolises (and robbed us of our legal prerogative to get good and soused). Shit, many people far wiser than I am have already observed how the Internet has not only democratized indie-rock fandom but also diminished its intensity; instead of handmade zines and brick-and-mortar stores, we have right clicks. Groovy.

More subtly, the online medium has also changed how we connect with our favorite bands. Web 2.0 hype aside, "interactive" doesn't necessarily mean a higher level of interaction. You've read this trend piece: To have an opinion on a band, all you need is facility with a search engine. To remove them entirely from your lives, just hit shift-delete. To be a fan...?

Hey guys, there's this Atlanta band called Deerhunter I really dig. Yeah like the movie. No, totally, pick up their CD! Buy that shit from my Amazon link! Instead of limiting themselves to the current (possibly doomed) model of "I make music, and you take it all from me for free and then shit on my memory when the next Joanna Newsom comes along," Deerhunter kinda let fans take their fandom to the next level. No, not like the prom.

Back when Blur were the most important thing in the world (who's going to take over the world when I die?), when I was in high school, I used to go into random record stores with import sections and look for their B-sides. This was before I was plugged into the music discourse that tells it's totally normal for sweaty, peach-fuzzed weirdos all over the country, THE WORLD EVEN, to look for B-sides in record-store import sections. And do you know what I would do? Why, sometimes I would even buy Blur import CD singles without previously hearing any of the B-sides!


I wanted to be an acquired taste.
Echo and the Bunnymen: Show of Strength (h/t: Dennis Cooper)

Maybe it's my blurred perspective as a critic, but it's hard to remember the last time I paid money for new music I didn't already know, from advance listening, I would like. Except, not. Deerhunter are one band that allows fans to return to the aforementioned pre-blogsearch (eff Technorati) fan scenario: People taking a financial risk on a band they like and getting to keep something to remind them of it (to put it crassly). Yeah, I suppose I could sell or throw away my Blur B-sides, but why would I? That would be like throwing away my 1981 Topps Joe Montana rookie card! Steve Albini has a bigger penis than I do!

Most famously, Deerhunter made their "Whirlyball" 7" available at only one store, as Pitchfork's twice-indefatigable Paul Thompson reported. A single, by a popular Internet band, that nobody on the Internet can get. I even have family in Atlanta, and I still haven't heard it (shut up, I don't have a family). So what if it might suck? Plenty of Blur B-sides did, too, though enough were golden to make the quest worthwhile.

More than that, Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox also has a solo project, Atlas Sound. Now, Deerhunter might be enough for most people, but any great band is also going to have some crazy fans who want to hear even more, so this is perfect. From MySpace listens, Cox's forthcoming Atlas Sound album is gonna be pretty sweet. But he also drops all kinds of 12"s and shit for total fanatics, like this split 12" with Mexcellent on Hoss Records, Fractal Trax. As with my Blur B-sides, once you own something like that, you've made an investment in an artist; you probably still won't like everything they do, but you won't abandon them for the next Zach Braff panty-dropper that gets seven and a half riffs from AllMachineStylusStone. You've interacted.

I finally got Fractal Trax in the mail yesterday. I ordered it with real money, but there was a press release in the box. Is that a standard thing these days? Apparently it's all Cox in his bedroom on four-track tape, playing guitars, percussion, and electric bass, plus manipulating tape. First track is "Axis I (F. Grey)", which perhaps unsurprisingly sounds like an outtake version of the title track to Deerhunter's Fluorescent Grey EP (kind of an inscrutable Excepter-ment to it, too); Cox's familiar vocal delay effects are everywhere, so I still can't tell what he's saying on the song's refrain. "Axis II" slips into some homemade beats akin to the outro of "Strawberry Fields" or that Sebadoh song that rips off the outro of "Strawberry Fields", with a heavy bass groove. I forget "Inhalents" right now, but then fourth track "'I Know, I Know'" seems to pick up the "was not seen again" melody of Cryptograms' "Heatherwood". A helium Battles/Dan Deacon voice goes, "I've seen where you and me part," and then Cox is all, "I know decay could swallow me," and "All your base are belong to us," and, like, Ian Curtis shit, man man.

You can't hear any of it online.

Maybe the RIAA should revert to vinyl.

I prefer my urinals to have dividers, thanks.


Thinking about what a friend had said, I was hoping it was a lie.
Frank Black: I Heard Ramona Sing (live, solo acoustic, 1993)

UPDATE: Yes! It's poppin'.

UPDATE UPDATE: Thnx to the also-indefatigable Brandon Stosuy, you actually can hear one track online. Once again, technology makes me look stupid.

WHY YOU SO STUPID? YOU HUNGRY FOR HOT POCKETS!

If you throw a light on something magical it disappears.
The Tough Alliance: Koka Kola Veins

Some of the music that has made me lose my shit most this year didn't make it onto the official offnotes RIFFMARKET Status Ain't Hood Quarterly Report (brought to you by Tostitos, Breakfast of Champions); it wasn't in album form. FWIW, I'm holding off on a traxx list until the semi-annual report, so it should be ready in, like, November.

Anyway, as with Tom and his "swirly percussive post-noise", I'm not exactly the NME when it comes to coining unnecessary genre names. The vague ILX descriptor "blog house"-- for the all the Kanye-baiting music that followed Justice's Waters of Nazareth EP-- will have to do, even though what interests me more is the melodic pop side of this stuff, the tracks I listen to the way I'd listen to Belle & Sebastian or, like, the Beatles, even if I did get them off Discobelle just like you. Some of the artists I have in mind, like Toronto's Crystal Castles, are far more rock than house, even if they're also great remixers.

Whatever. The point is, in the wake of bands like the Rapture (and now, in the UK, Klaxons) bringing guitars back to the disco, plenty of bands have been springing up, particularly in the past year, that approach electronic music with the same sense of fun, rather than the type of clinicism that birthed descriptors like "Intelligent" Dance Music (no knock on that genre). Hot Chip were probably one of the leading forces on that front, and they're really as great as Sean Fennessey has been saying for ages.

What makes Hot Chip different from another amazing electronic pop outfit like, say, Junior Boys, is the way they don't seem to need to couch their fun in distance or concepts. They sing about monkeys with miniature cymbals, or boys from school, and repeat phrases like "I'm in no fit state" over and over, etc. etc.-- you could gussy it all up with theories about minimalism, maybe bring in some Stockhausen, but with Hot Chip it's probably better not to. As with LCD Soundsystem, there's plenty to think about, but it ultimately achieves pop's simplest goals: moving bodies, touching hearts. Gag me, right? Except that's why I listen to this stuff.

How about Simian Mobile Disco? I'm unspeakably excited about their forthcoming album, and their production work for Klaxons and Arctic Monkeys has done little to dim my enthusiasm. Even more than Hot Chip, or great but inescapably rich-Eurochic-coke-addict stuff like Justice, Simian's "I Believe" (I thought it was "I Bealive"?) straddles this line between post-Daft Punk club fun and melodies worth humming. Other tracks like "It's the Beat" or more in keeping with the Go! Team craziness of some Justice tracks, and are also worthy, but I prefer my Simian with more feeling. Subjective, yeah, but it's still my blog.


In free verse on the road with Kerouac sheltered in his Bivouac.
The Tough Alliance: Holiday

My latest favorite on the poppier side of this microgenre is Swedish electropop duo The Tough Alliance, about whom I hope to say more shortly. Like Sally Shapiro, they manage to bring electronic music fully into the realm of bright, overwhelming pop-- the kind of unbridled cheerfulness that these days usually gets ghettoized alongside far blander guitar-based twee-pop stuff-- and fuse it with some kind of weird situationist aesthetic. This isn't really house music at all, except you can dance to it. And it makes me eager to hear more.

Elsewhere: Jonathan Chait has the impressive, definitive take on the liberal netroots. I don't read Kos anymore, but boy am I glad he's there. At the same time, I feel like once actual journalists cease to believe in the possibility of an objective truth-- an unattainable goal, yes, but surely one worth striving for-- then democracy is impossible. Especially if you're not Hunter Thompson, but especially if you are.

Zach Baron has the impressive, definitive review of the new Dinosaur Jr. comeback. Ah, memory lane.


I've seen what's left of poor technology and worth.
Neil Postman on Cyberspace, 1995.