Teehee

Dischord Records’ resident spokesperson is evidently named Alec Bourgeois. Awesome.

It seemed appropriate at the time

More on Cultural Dilettantism

Here’s a pretty sterling example of a tendency I criticized a few weeks ago:
After the remarkable efforts of Gulag Orkestar and The Flying Club Cup, Zach Condon’s offbeat hybridization of traditional Eastern European motifs and Western indie pop reached a glorious pinnacle. But where take things from there? Rather than resting on his laurels, the [...]

Links

Kellogg drops Phelps; Radley Balko drops Kellogg.
A fun article on Bird and Erving from 1982 (via).
The lesser-known version of my all-time favorite song about romantic anticipation.

Music as Porn

Here’s a provocative point from Helen Rittelmeyer:
None of that was especially clear, perhaps because my take on Pulp is sadly un-British and therefore weak. Maybe the American translation would have something to do with Neutral Milk Hotel, the band that led a generation into thinking that the ideal love affair would be one between a [...]

Welcome Home

I’m not in a very bloggish mood, so here’s a great song from Radical Face to tide you over. I can’t claim any intimate knowledge of the band – I recently stumbled across this track on a friend’s graduation mixtape – but it’s a pretty good song nonetheless:

The Show

Tonight’s outing was pretty rough for the Boss: long on rehearsed stage banter, short on any spark of musical spontaneity. He can still write great music, but this Washington Post article on one fan coming to terms with Springsteen’s halftime appearance seems apt:
I had covered three Super Bowls in nearly 20 years as a sportswriter. [...]

One Trick Ponies

Peter effin’ Gabriel gets the nod for Best Original Song while the Academy stiffs Springsteen’s sublime “Wrestler?” Change rings hollow, America.

Getting Old

The ‘fork has released the first half of its highly-anticipated “100 best songs of the year” and I’ve listened to, like, three of them. I think that means my awareness of contemporary music is now roughly equivalent to my parents’, which is depressing, because I used to keep up with this sort of thing religiously. [...]

Christmas Creep

Usually, pop artists’ efforts at passable Christmas music are utter failures. Last year, however, the Killers released a pretty brilliant Christmas single. Our statist-corporatist oligarchy won’t let me embed the video, but “Don’t Shoot Me Santa Claus” is still a great song. You should check it out.

The Beast and Dragon, Adored

Via Culture11, it seems Rolling Stone has turned out another inane “best of” list. This time, it’s the greatest singers of the “rock era,” which presumably means none of their staff writers knew enough about music to write an entry on Billie Holiday or Frank Sinatra. Well, whatever. I haven’t taken Rolling Stone seriously since [...]

No Way

Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” is actually getting released?

Worst Cover Ever

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Guns ‘n’ Roses’ bloated rendition of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”:

Faking it Through the Day

James Poulos offers a nice tribute to Elliott Smith:
But if some percentage of the hipsters who survived Elliott Smith were themselves amateur blurs, Smith was the town professional, a wastrel who earned his stripes and a hero to the healing and the decaying alike. Over the course of a blotchy career that peaked on that [...]

Purchasing Power

Culture11 has a heartbreaking piece on the demise of the New York Sun. Now that the paper is dead and gone, I feel slightly guilty for never subscribing. That said, I would have missed out on the Sun entirely had Eli Lake (the paper’s national security correspondent) not appeared regularly on Bloggingheads, which probably says [...]

Dystopian Dream Girl

I meant to flag this a few days ago, but Michael Lind penned a few truly disturbing predictions for TNR in the wake of the bailout (emphases mine):
In democracies, temporary spending programs tend to become permanent, so the “normal” government share of GDP in the U.S. may rise to 35 or even 40 percent. This [...]

But Senator Obama, I don’t want to serve . . .

I caught a few snippets of the debate, but I’ll outsource my insta-verdict to the girlfriend: “Obama came off as a bit more fluent and cordial.”
And there you have it. For what’s it worth, I could do without all these calls for service.
UPDATE: More Promise Ring punditry! It’s about time elites took notice of the [...]

A Place To Bury Strangers

For me, the low point of the past several days has been watching Sarah Palin repeatedly criticize Obama for calling attention to Afghani civilian casualties. Leaving aside the incredible callousness of this line of attack, one hopes Palin realizes that bombing noncombatants can be pretty counterproductive. This also happens to be one of the best [...]

Stay in and watch the debate or go see an all-lesbian Zeppelin tribute band?

Yeah, it was an easy decision. For what it’s worth, Lez Zeppelin rocked the casbah last night, belting out impressive covers of “Ramble On” and “Kashmir,” among others. They also stayed away from the really obvious song choices (thank God “Stairway to Heaven” didn’t make the set list). Of course, attending the show was merely [...]

More References to My Favorite High School Bands, Please

This is a good start. Perhaps “Sunny Day Real Estate” will become our euphemism of choice for crappy subprime mortgages?