I OFTEN FELT THAT EACH OF YOUR VOTES WAS A PRAYER

I have an old-fashioned notion.

HERE I AM (COME AND TAKE ME)

There is little in the way of substantive philosophy other than the social prejudices of the yuppie class, which holds the simultaneous beliefs that the current arrangement is producing highly satisfactory results and, at the same time, is somehow terribly wrong.
David Geddes: The Last Game of the Season (The Blind Man in the Bleachers)

Aaron Copland, the 20th-century American composer of such works as "Appalachian Spring" and "Fanfare for the Common Man", believed that there was but one requirement for a potentially good music listener. "He must be able to recognize a melody when he hears it," Copland wrote. Although familiar with the classical avant-garde of his time, Copland preferred to write simple music that could be easily enjoyed by a mass audience. He sometimes took inspiration from jazz. Eventually, he went Hollywood.

Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, the turn-of-the-21st-century American composer of such works as "Buddy Holly" and "Undone (The Sweater Song)", can recognize a melody when he hears it... Eventually, he went "Beverly Hills".

Anyone looking for a return to form on Weezer's sixth album-- fourth since their late-1990s hiatus, third self-titled-- would do well again to think of Copland. Struck by writer's block for his final 17 years, the maestro told a journalist, "It was exactly as if someone had simply turned off a faucet."

Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush will both love this album.

Make Believe was a gift to the simpletons. The Red Album is a fanfare for a common band.


We ate cereal.
Aleksander Hemon: The Lazarus Project

SORT OF LIKE A DREAM. NO, BETTER

Someone shook him out of sleep into a primrose dawn, among unshaven puffy faces washed lightly over as though with the paling ultimate stain of a holocaust, blinking at one another with dead eyes into which personality returned in secret opaque waves.
All 4 One: I Swear

Found myself around a campfire I had built in the Adirondacks strumming a guitar leading an 11-person "Wonderwall" sing-along wishing I knew "Laid".

[link removed, just because]

(click for video, crossposted from p4k)
You pay the grocer, fix the toaster, kiss the host goodbye. Then you break a window, burn the soufflé, scream the lullaby.
Weezer: Pork and Beans

A JOURNALIST'S TWIN POINTS OF REFERENCE SHOULD BE THE REAL AND THE IMPORTANT

When you disagree with Obama, you are saying to these people, ‘Your favorite band sucks.’
The Tough Alliance: Neo Violence (directed by Marcus Soderlund)

"There is NOTHING about what we're doing that screams cultural revolution," Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla once told Associated Press reporter Jake Coyle. Try saying that again to a military tribunal after being waterboarded without the right to an attorney, Wallaby the Red. While the sensitively krautrock-suggesting sounds of these urban elitist taxi-takers reached the top of the album charts this week, America faces a much graver threat-- in the form of a band that's obviously much more popular, even though they have never had a #1 album, or even gone platinum. You wanna know the most terrifying part? We can't even count on the so-called Mainstream Media to warn us about it.


Hey world I've had enough.
Thomas Friedman: "Suck on This" (fall 2007; via Gawker)


Item! Sen. Barack Obama, a Democrat Party presidential hopeful from the suspiciously waterfront-possessing (and therefore elitist but also a bunch of simple-minded parrots) heartland state of Illinois, recently spoke before 75,000 people in Oregon.

Item! Item! Here's what the MSM wouldn't tell you. The reason the 75,000-strong crowd gave a skinny apostate Muslim a rock star reception was because there were actual rock stars there, too! Yup, and just as in the days of swiveling pelvises, indecent Mr. Mojo Risin exposure, and New Kids on the Block biting the head off of Fred Savage's friend from "The Wonder Years" while singing "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This" in the pit at a Machine Rages On concert (um, forget that last one), this rock music has the devil in it. The communist devil, in fact! The real rock stars at the Obama event were the members of a popular beat combo calling itself the Decemberists. Yes, just like the 1825 Russian uprising. Wikipedia states: "The band has used the National Anthem of the Soviet Union as an introduction at many concerts." Oh, no wonder they're opening for Neville Chamberlain.



I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written.
Chris Matthews: Yeah that clip again


But this just goes to show why you shouldn't believe those snooty highbrow empty headed Botox cheeked latte mustached information-having journalist types. They'll tell you people came out for a politician who has solicited lots and lots of donations from many many people! But they won't tell you people may have come out for a Communist ("Capitol" Records? ...More like "Kremlin"!) heavy metal band that loves to glorify the humble chimbley sweep and ugly body parts like right ankles instead of good old American beer, liquor, French fries, and 9/11. Is that what the kids are calling "crunk"?


crosspost
I never feel like garbage when I'm with you.
Beck: Chemtrails


Or I might be putting too much faith in the rockcrit abilities of Common Sense Wonder, Newsbusters' avuncular yet teddy bear-like Robert Knight, National Review's Jim Geraghty, AOL's Jay Allbritton, Black & Right's Bob Parks, Brad Staggs, Free Republic ("Band Opening for Obama in Oregon Frequently Uses Soviet Anthem"), Punish the Innocent as Well's Aaron, Free Republic again ("Sadly, I will no longer listen to the Decemberists"), Culture and Media Institute, the well-named Lone Wacko, some Lucianne Goldberg message boarders ("I believe that Obama has become so vain and is such a socialist Marxist that he will mock all of the US and his followers by displaying it one way or another while denying it and continuing to play the moderate. Has there ever been a more dangerous candidate for president? I don't think so."), Liberty Post, Gather.com's Shawn M ("the band is pro-Communist"), Yahoo Answers' Night Guy, Jason at Sonoran Alliance, Defending the Truth's CNREDD, Power Line's SusanGo, and-- oh, jeez-- Hugh Hewitt. Only Joe Lieberman can help me now. Kiss 'im once for me, Larry Kudlow.

crosspost
There ain't no devil, it's just God when he's drunk.
Usher ft. Jay-Z: Best Thing

DELICATE, EXQUISITE-MINDED, AND YOUTHFUL, AND AT THE SAME TIME ODDLY RETICENT

click for stream
I've been down this street a thousand times this week.
Nordpolen: Skimret

That Death Cab review made me sad. Ben Gibbard sounds... really sad. I mean, I guess we knew that already from the songs, but there's just this frank resignation in his press these days, particularly his Paste cover story. He's not some Dionysian suicidal drug addict, either, which makes his tone that much more relatable. He's just a guy who got almost everything he ever wanted and realized he'll still never have everything he ever wanted-- most likely nobody will. A smart, literate, slightly melancholy but generally decent, well-meaning, and careful guy. Boo hoo, right? Well, yeah.

The Explorers Club review was a bummer, too, only cause I really like a few of those songs but just can't stop hearing them all together as really good Beach Boys covers but with less of the original feeling, less spark. It's hard to put my finger on.

Things that make me have facial expressions lately:

Dancing is something you do alone in your room at three in the morning.
Stephen Colbert

The Game Source cover

"American Cutie" ???

"the two manliest actors of the 20th century"

new torture documents

"the waning power of race in the dirty dirty"

obama's appalachian problem

"I think the fear of letting a band get too big too fast, lest they stunt their growth, stems from a..."

curious george. i hope we look back on this someday the way we look at people being afraid kennedy would defer to the pope.

A NOT PARTICULARLY CLEVER WAY OF RAISING JOHN MCCAIN'S AGE AS AN ISSUE

Like it was the backs of their eyeballs you looked at while they were hearing music you couldn't hear.
Hot Chocolate: Heaven Is in the Backseat of My Cadillac

I can see why Chuck Eddy, Matthew Perpetua, Mike Barthel, Tom Breihan and others might be less enthused than I am about No Age's Nouns, and it's clearly not just critics' natural tendency to be skeptical of what somebody else rated extremely highly. The recurring focus on No Age's role in LA's the Smell scene (they're more popular than Mika Miko because they've put out better records, guys) should rightly raise suspicions about whether that's what people are seizing on here, the process rather than the music. For me, though, as someone approaching Nouns from a perspective that's ridiculously steeped in recent indie and probably less conversant about No Age's supposed 1990s soundalikes than any of those dudes, thinking about Nouns in terms of 1990s indie rock is missing the point. I see No Age more as part of a fascinating movement that includes Liars, Deerhunter, Beach House, High Places, and others, all of whom share an interest to some extent in both punk ideals and ambient aesthetics. You listen to "Keechy" the way you might listen to Markus Guentner, not the way you listen to Dinosaur Jr. (or the way I do, anyway). When a band like Sebadoh gets loud and noisy, whether on a Gaffney song or at the end of "Brand New Love", they're rocking out. When No Age are noisy-- which there's admittedly less of on Nouns than on Weirdo Rippers-- it seems to me that they're better enjoyed for their textures, for the way they encourage perceptual drift and let us get lost in those little fuzzy tendrils of feedback and distortion where music and noise intersect (but without giving up on pop's melodies or communicativeness... or punk's emphasis on provocation and independence, if you're into that sort of thing). I haven't heard an album that does this better all year, and although an argument could certainly be made for Pavement's Watery, Domestic EP, I don't think I'm being nostalgic.

IF YOU CAN'T ANNOY SOMEBODY, THERE'S LITTLE POINT IN WRITING

Their shit don't stink and their kids don't bleed.
Blessid Union of Souls: Hey Leonardo



Gotta die with money 'cause I wasn't born with it.
(via fluxtumblr)


Dude, Zengerle, psychoanalytical gobbledygook isn't good political journalism. Gail Collins is no more qualified a mind reader than any other armchair pundit. Clever writing doesn't make it relevant.

Wow, the Guardian on Jonathan Richman: "The Bostonians." I'm makin' it Katrina (y'all drizzle).

OK, I want them to get on with it, too, but I hate finding out that things I thought I knew just ain't so. Remember that anti-flag-burning measure that Hillary supported in what was supposedly a pander? Richard Cohen at the Washington Post just based a column on it two years later, using it to show how Clinton would do anything to win. Somehow, he didn't know (and I definitely didn't know) that the measure was a defensive move to give red-state pols cover while also evading a constitutional amendment. More importantly, Obama supports it, too! Cohen had to issue a correction. Bob Somerby has the scoop:

COHEN (2/12/08): My Feb. 5 column was critical of Hillary Clinton for supporting a bill to make flag burning illegal. I have since learned from a reader that Barack Obama also supported that bill.

Then again, dumber:

Earlier in the campaign, questions were raised as to whether Barack Obama was raised as a Muslim as a child. Obama seemed to have put the questions to rest by stating unequivocally that he has always been a Christian and was never raised as a Muslim. Daniel Pipes collects a substantial amount of evidence that Barack has been less than forthcoming on this issue

These are the alpha dogs of the week.
Teenage Fanclub: Hang On

Shorter James Kirchick: People who think the Iraq war was doomed from the start are just like Osama Bin Laden. Key quote: "[Matthew Yglesias] echoes Osama bin Laden when he argues that Islamist anger against the West is a justified response to foreign powers that 'occupy Muslim land.'"

Well, QED: If Bin Laden said something, then it's clearly false. I'm pretty sure Bin Laden believes in a monotheistic god, too, but whatever.

Funnier:

Chris Matthews: Let’s bring on Tim Russert here. Tim, don’t you think this election is just like a great FOOTBALL GAME?

Tim Russert: You said it. A real barnburner, Chris.

Howard Fineman: Jesus.

Tim: You know, it reminds me a lot of when my dad, BIG RUSS, and I watched Bills games together. Just one of those real back-and-forth games. You had Jim Kelly, the great, All-pro quarterback. And you had Thurman Thomas, the wonderful running back. Those were real competitions. And that’s what we have here. A REAL competition. With Barack Obama, whose this sort of great, unpolished talent. Very much like Vince Young, the quarterback down in Tennessee.

Chris: I agree. I think he’s just like Vince Young, right down to the gay throwing motion. This REALLY is astounding. I’ve always said politics is just like football, and it’s showing here.

Tim: Actually Chris, you have deviated from that platform on occasion. I have a quote here that YOU gave to MSNBC just two months earlier where you said, quote: “I think this election is just like a GREAT HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING MATCH,” unquote. So you said boxing match back then, and now you’re saying football. How do you reconcile those two positions?

Chris: HA! That’s amazing, Tim! God, you’re just like a GREAT TENNIS PLAYER! Always volleying back and forth with all kinds of moves. It’s amazing! Let’s bring on Senator Clinton here for a moment. Senator Clinton, don’t you think you’re just like BILL BELICHICK?

just got back from London-- well, like, more than a week ago! british library (magna carta!), british museum (rosetta stone! like, the headless parts of the parthenon!), the tower of london, the national gallery, the national portrait gallery, the tate modern, hyde park... saw but didn't pay to really do: westminster abbey, st. paul's, the globe theater, buckingham palace. went to all manner of pubs, gastropubs, and indian restaurants. rough trade east. more pubs. some not good but perfect english guitar band. boris and growing within walking distance of our first accommodations, in bloomsbury. junior boys and morgan geist and kelley polar (and metronomy...) at the former millennium dome, the "indie" building next to the venue prince played, a mall-like place that's indoors but feels like it's outdoors like (i'm told) las vegas, dinner and pints with friends, out to oxford one day, the bird pooping on us right away but the day turning out awesome with stops at a great little sandwich shop and the pub where clinton didn't inhale and the pub where tolkien and lewis must've walked around making people call them by their initials and the guy from bristol who told his oxford law student gf "i've picked up some tourists!" and saw can live in 1973 even though he looked way too young but on the other hand he didn't seem to realize how cool that was.

was going to say, sorry this is so short, but jeez. i would like to thank my non-guest, rain!