THE WEATHER'S ON THE NIGHT NEWS

I gotta get some gum.
The Redskins: Interview and Keep on Keepin' On

The truly heartbreaking thing about all the snark this century is we mean every miserable word. The girl in the "Die Hipsters Die" shirt? The guy who started sneering at his favorite band right when they got popular-- but not because they got popular? The jerk-off music critic? You know the type. For all the supposed irony in today's loose online community of obsessed music freaks, it never seems like anyone's fronting about their own fear and self-loathing.

The Tough Alliance recognize this, and they've found a way out.

The F train and the Q train are not my friends.

FASHION UNCONSCIOUSNESS IS OUT TODAY

He is the coolest dad in dad school.
Headless Chickens: Gaskrankinstation

Yer Idolators did a fine thing today (yesterday). And that is they linked to the first advance review of the new rekkid by the Radioheads. Which reminds me that I haven't yet reviewed the 40-pound hype in the room and that, unbefitting the spirit of the dude quoted in my probably inappropriate but I really don't know any better anymore previous post, I haven't written a review of an album I haven't heard, like, ever. For shame.

Can't start now, either, because OF COURSE I've heard the Radioheads' In Rainbows. Many times over. I've listened to it in the shower, I've listened to it while trimming my nails with these awesome nail clippers that catch your clippings so you can just shake them out instead of picking up after yourself, I've listened to it while making toast, and I've listened to it while sound asleep on a hotel bed with unexplained non-vomity green stuff on the bedspread and on the back of my shirt which was still on my body along with the rest of my clothes including my tie.

And I can safely say that In Rainbows is an album among albums, in that yeah it's only coming out at 160 kbps but that's better than 128 kbps and most people not reading this blog probably don't know kpbs from bpm from rpm unless I'm once again incorrectly misunderestimating the music knowledge of the gazillions of people who aren't buying music or even stealing and thus are destroying the music industry by default. So that the Radioheads can save it by releasing an album so much better than all other albums that it is four albums, two on CDs which are known for their "perfect sound forever" and thus doubly perfect, and two on records which are known for having even better PR if a worse marketing team given their lack of memorable slogan. And as every offnotes-hipped math fan knows, four albums are better than one, especially when they're four albums by the Radioheads, whose every album is better than every other album by every other band. EVER. Except Reel Big Fish's Why Do They Rock So Hard. There were some funny tunes on that one.

But it wasn't free, and the Radioheads' is unless you're a sucker, which I am, but it's free until I notice the bill, which I won't, so in a sense every album is free, even Black Kids', even Pink Floyd's Meddle which I found on Rapidshare a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to hear the soccer fans, who are even more fanatical than Radiohead fans but not in America, where Bush fans are still even more fanatical than they are in Europe and Gavin Rossdale is still somehow married to Gwen Stefani, who may be less famous by now than the girl from Kids Incorporated, which was almost as good as the new Radioheads album, but it won't make you feel more alive or keep you from doing dumb things like losing your jacket and waking up in green stuff nobody recognizes but must be your fault because how else would it get there? 26 years old no less. Equals 9.8 or 6.7, choose yer poison.

Oh whatever because Best Week Ever, of all the lame blogs, beat me to it, and beat you to it, too, so let's all hang our heads to the Radioheads' gloomy beats. Only question that matters is, does it sound good while blogging?


"Yeah I was this creepy little kid of eleven" sez a nostalgic Robert Christgau, slightly drunk (Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1969).
LCD Soundsystem: All My Friends

Hooray for Jonathan Chait, writing over at the New York Times:

"Last year, Senator John McCain earned widespread ridicule for publicly embracing Jerry Falwell, whom he had once described as 'evil.' But an equally breathtaking turnabout occurred earlier in the year, when Mr. McCain embraced the Bush tax cuts he had once denounced as an unaffordable giveaway to the rich. In an interview with National Review, Mr. McCain justified his reversal by saying, 'Tax cuts, starting with Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues.' It was the political equivalent of Galileo conceding that the Sun does indeed revolve around the Earth."

IF YOU EVER NEED A STRANGER (TO SING AT YOUR WEDDING)

Put your troubles away until tomorrow. If you're lucky, someone will break into your house tonight and steal 'em.
Jonathan Richman: Now Is Better Than Before

Make it Meltzer?

"Knot-tying is real big in Philadelphia. They're all married. The Tearsons, the Damskers, they're all married. Hooked. Hitched. Fuckin wedded before the eyes of Big Bozo upstairs. New York there's much fewer lefthanded ring fingers with the old metal on it. When was the last one to make it legal, the Richard & Lisa Robinsons? No there was the Bud & Linda Coppas. And way before that the Ed & Jeanie McCormacks. Christgau's always auditioning somebody for the role of permanent mate but he hasn't turned up anything just yet. Richard Goldstein and his honey-bear have called it 'quits.' Matrimony in NYC is fuckin shot to shit.

"Did I say is, I mean was. Cause there's a new one now and it's the best so far. Nick & Sunny Tosches. They went down to City Hall and this guy in a lavender shirt and tie did the honors and when she couldn't get the ring on her finger he said 'Whatsamatter, eatin too many potatoes.' As a matter of fact she does like the old tuber pretty much whether it's mashed, fried, baked or boiled. Or mashed. She drinks a lotta Almaden white from Californey-ay and speaking of Californ she has fornicated. With Nick. They fucked and fucked and fugged till the cows came home and then once for good measure and this was all before the nuptials had begun."

Um. Not exactly what I'm trying to say except for like two sentences in the middle there, and I know you don't even like Tosches (but!), but hopefully you get the idea. Congrats, dudes. And thanks for hosting a beautiful wedding.

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)

I'M ON MY WAY TO THE BANK LMAO

I say confusion is next to happiness.
DAF: Der Mussolini

Burning question in indiepop land is Who the hell do Los Campesinos! think they are? when it should be At what point do we vanish up our own trapper keepers? Not even talking about asymmetrical haircuts! Or exclamation points!!!

!!!

!!!

!!!

!!!

!!!




Good taste is the residue of someone else's privilege.
Los Campesinos!: International Tweexcore Underground (cross-posted from Pitchfork)

On their new single, Los Campesinos! name-drop (in order): Black Flag's Henry Rollins, Heavenly/Talulah Gosh's Amelia Fletcher, Minor Threat/Fugazi's Ian MacKaye, Beat Happening/K Records' Calvin Johnson, and Sarah Records. These mentions come in the form of "I never cared about..." or "...never meant anything to me." With last week's release of the video, the lyrics about Sarah, Amelia, and Calvin caused a bit of concern over on an indiepop list where I lurk, and frankly I was a bit taken aback at first as well.

Fortunately, Dave Maher was more diligent in his fact-gathering than I was and dug up a bulletin from the band's MySpace. In their own, disappointingly exclamation-point-free words, the song "is a story of a friendship of two opposites and how they are in the best band in the world, one embracing things that are, shall we say (and you would almost definitely say) 'twee' (yuck) and the other embracing music that is...not so." OK, cool. Parentheses are the new etc.

A little more surprising were comments out there to the effect that "International Tweexcore Underground" was big-budget, would make Los Campesinos! massive radio stars, was MTV-ready, etc. etc. (etc.) I mean for our purposes the budget probably isn't bad, and the video is polished enough for MTV, but MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE SINGING ABOUT. Do they?


What's the meaning of life anything you like.
Shocking Pinks: End of the World (again lazily cross-posted from Pitchfork)

Most people don't know what I'm talking about. Most people don't know what Art Brut are singing about, or Tullycraft, or LCD Soundsystem at least until Jams Murphy started wanting to be with his friends again. Los Campesinos! songs like "You! Me! Dancing!" or Fall Out Boy-sized potential smash "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks" could imaginably, with proper production, hit home for a broader audience that doesn't spend all its time yet STEALING MUSIC OH NOES.

But "International Tweexcore Underground"?

Oh, it's a really good song, precise and well-crafted and kinda funny once we're in on the joke. What I'm wondering, I guess, is whether we're headed for (or have already arrived at) pop music that only works if you're part of a relatively small group of obsessives, either at a mainstream level-- even knowing what's a hit takes more effort now-- or "underground". Tom Breihan has mused before about how niche-oriented pop is now, and I've probably mentioned how I see the Internet as exacerbating all that, each of us seeking out content that reconfirms the importance of our own narrow interests, like the difference between cable and network TV but on a vastly more personalized level. As MTV circles the drain, a big enough cult and whatever major distribution Arts & Crafts presumably enjoys might be enough to give a Pavement-loving band of clean-looking Welsh kids a hit video, who knows, why not, just beat it.


Don't take five (take what you want)
R. Kelly: "Same Girl (Remix)" (ft. T-Pain and Usher)

I USED TO SAY DUMB THINGS I GUESS I STILL DO

It was a disappointing sunset, only 'cause my hopes were much too high.
Harpo: Movie Star

Via Greil Marcus (again) via Simon Frith's Sound Effects via Roland Barthes: I wonder if part of what attracts me to Jens Lekman's wonderful Night Falls Over Kortedala (9.0 from this schmuck) is the sense of what Barthes called signifiance (not a typo). As Marcus puts it:

"Barthes argued that the thrill of music is not a result of one's consious or subliminal response to 'significance' (the rendering of an important idea, emotion, moment in time, or whatever -- think of how you've tried to make sense of your response to 'Like a Rolling Stone' or 'Gimmie Shelter'); rather, the thrill comes from one's response to signifiance. This odd and intriguing word has baffled Barthe's translators (some, as if to say the hell with it, have rendered it as'significance'), but Frith handles the word best: signifiance refers not to a sign but to 'the work of signification'-- not to meaning, but to 'the making of meanings'. We do not respond to symbols (doom in the dark chords and apocalyptic lyrics of 'Gimmie Shelter,' escape and release in the rising choruses of 'Like a Rolling Stone'), though we seize on such symbols and connect them to historical events or personal situations in order to explain our response; we respond to symbol creation."

Marcus/Frith go on to hold up Elvis Presley as the prime example; who the hell knows what he stood for, but sure as Memphis sits on the mighty Mississippi, Elvis stood for something: standing for something.


If we all decide that there are five pints in a quart, that's objectively true. (And a bargain!)
Jens Lekman: Interview in Paris

So if Elvis stood for signifiance, then maybe Lekman's album stands for the possibility that we can be in control of the process-- that we can make our own symbols, just as he shores these pop fragments against our 21st-century cultural ruins. I don't really have this all pinned down yet. See in the above interview (posted yesterday) how Lekman sort of makes a similar point to the one in my review-- he says the wealth of unedited music on the Web allows us all to edit out our own favorite tracks, decide for ourselves which matter, create our own Jens Lekmans and have them, Whopper-like, our way.

Side note: I love how on "Shirin", he sings, "I won't tell anyone," just as he is telling, um, everyone.

Something capable of revealing that point of access which provides a shortcut to the magical realm behind this spectacle.
Mainly Spaniards: That's What Friends Are For

Here's something worth getting political about. In Vanity Fair, Evgenia Peretz goes on at length about what the indefatigable Bob Somerby calls the press corps' two-year "War Against Gore": the one where the brightest, best-paid pundits at The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, and MSNBC-- not just FOX or crazy right-wingers-- falsely convinced you that Al Gore said he'd invented the Internet, claimed he personally discovered the infamous Love Canal toxic-waste site, invented that he and Tipper were the inspiration for the novel "Love Story" (the author has said they were), changed into "earth tones" at the behest of Naomi Wolf (Wolf has denied this, the original reports were based on speculation by disgraced former Clinton aide Dick Morris, and besides, who doesn't occasionally wear "earth tones"?), etc. etc. etc.

A sample of the kind of misconduct which, in any other profession, would get someone fired or possibly sued:

"MSNBC anchor Brian Williams went after Gore's clothes at least five times in one week. 'Here is a guy taking off his suits.… This is the casual sweater look—what's going on here?' … 'He would have been in a suit a month ago.' … 'He's wearing these polo shirts that don't always look natural on him.' Williams's frequent guest Newsweek's Howard Fineman later chimed in: 'I covered his last presidential campaign, in 1988. One day he was in the conservative blue suit, the next he was playing lumberjack at the V.F.W. hall in New Hampshire.'

"And Gore just kept going on about issues. Alluding to five speeches he made in two months on education, crime, the economy, faith-based organizations, and cancer research, [the Times's Katherine] Seelye wrote, 'Mr. Gore becomes almost indignant when asked if his avalanche of positions might overwhelm voters.' The Washington Post's David Broder later found Gore too focused in his convention speech on what he'd do as president. 'But, my, how he went on about what he wants to do as president,' wrote Broder. 'I almost nodded off.' As for the environment, while Gore was persuaded by his consultants not to talk about it as much as he would have liked, whenever he did, many in the media ignored it or treated it as comedy. Dowd wrote in one column that 'Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he's practically lactating.' In another, referring to his consideration of putting a Webcam in the Oval Office, she wrote, 'I have zero desire to see President Gore round the clock, putting comely interns to sleep with charts and lectures on gaseous reduction.'

"The trivial continued to dominate during the postmortem following Gore and Bush's first debate, on October 3, 2000. The television media were sure Gore won—at first. But then Republican operatives promptly spliced together a reel of Gore sighing, which was then sent to right-wing radio outlets. Eighteen hours later, the pundits could talk of little else. 'They could hear you audibly sighing or sounding exasperated as Governor Bush was answering questions,' Katie Couric scolded him the next day on the Today show. 'Do you think that's presidential behavior?' For the Times's Frank Bruni, the sighs weren't as galling as Gore's familiarity with the names of foreign leaders. 'It was not enough for Vice President Al Gore to venture a crisp pronunciation of Milosevic, as in Slobodan,' he wrote. 'Mr. Gore had to go a step further, volunteering the name of Mr. Milosevic's challenger Vojislav Kostunica.'"


These people are still among the most prominent, highest-paid people in my profession. They are responsible for George W. Bush. They are responsible for the Iraq war. They do not care about you. And they will not do their jobs (John Edwards has fancy haircuts! Rudy Giuliani is Mayor of America! Fred Thompson is hung like a mule!) unless we stand up to them.


Final thought: If anyone knows where to find the "dub" version of Shai's "If I Ever Fall in Love" that Diplo uses on this insanely awesome mix, please, for the love of Christ, hook a writer up.

I SWEAR THAT I CAN SEE FOREVER IN YOUR EYES

I'll take the subway to your suburb sometime.
Super Furry Animals: Hometown Unicorn

Taking a cue from Ned Raggett, I thought I'd atone for my recent silence (here anyway -- lots of me over at Pitchfork in recent days) with a look through the archives. I've written plenty of horrible but possibly interesting stuff, plus some other things that hopefully don't suck too much.

- Ben Folds: Songs for Silverman review, Pitchfork
I'm still getting called out for this one. I don't think it was that bad if you're part of the (admittedly small) audience that knows what "OTM" means, though I do wish I'd made it clearer how much I love and respect Folds' earlier work.

- The Boy Least Likely To: The Best Party Ever review, Pitchfork
My first Best New Music. If you throw a light on something magical, it doesn't have to disappear.

- Bees: Free the Bees review, Pitchfork
During my five-review trial period, I wrote this concept review about concept reviews. Somehow I was not fired. Somehow the site still exists.

- Joan of Arc: Presents: Guitar Duets review, Pitchfork
No wait, here's a concept review about concept reviews. Sheesh.

- Hercules: In the Alleyway review, Pitchfork
Terribly written, and the reference points I use could be refined a lot further, but this is one of the first records I really got behind for Pitchfork. It's still one that people would do well to check out.

- Depeche Mode: Remixes 81-04 review, Pitchfork
Far and away the most embarrassing thing I've written for Pitchfork. I didn't enjoy spending a weekend listening to this Depeche Mode remix double-album, and maybe I still wouldn't, but I'm not sure how you'd read this review and not come away with the impression that my problem with the album was largely my own ignorance.

- The Streets: A Grand Don't Come for Free review, PopMatters
OK, so it's a bit juvenile in retrospect, but I still credit this review for getting me in the door at Pitchfork.

- "Elliott Smith: A Fond Farewell" essay, PopMatters
I like Elliott Smith.

- "Failure Is Victory" post, Whopundit
I dug up here and in other posts an extensive listing of instances where Administration officials said that things turning shitty in Iraq was really a sign that things were turning awesome. Obviously, I was wrong and George W. Bush has been proved right by history, which is why all the major print and TV pundits not named Paul Krugman are people who were still pro-war even at the time I was writing this.

- "Sbarro Opens to Hungry Mouths, Excitement" quote in the Daily Northwestern
I convinced a well-meaning Daily reporter to rush into print a rave review that could potentially damage my credibility. I was, of course, joking.


This has of course nothing to do with anything.
Deerhunter: Fluorescent Grey (live at South Street Seaport)

So that's that for now. Some stuff is better left in the archives-- and will stay there until John Mayer and Kanye West meld into some kind of unassailable Super Frat Boy, laying waste to every lowly music scribe in his/their media-blitzing path and, if I get to the Emerald City before midnight, bestowing upon me both heat vision and the power to erase memory. (Kevin Spacey is the killer.)

P.S. Rap blogger Byron Crawford: Heroic, Lou Dobbs-esque warrior against "political correctness"... or a guy who gets really excited about Tucker Carlson's pee-pee and any chance to talk shit about gay people? Seriously, this is the political issue Crawford thinks is worth taking a break from music to blog about? A debate from last week about whether or not some spoiled preppy who only has his millions-paying job because of his daddy deserves to get publicly castigated for acting like a spoiled preppy?