February 2010
“I’m hesitant to talk about it, because then it seems like Vampire Weekend...”
– Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend in a rather interesting and informative profile on the band by Josh Eells in the new issue of Rolling Stone. I enjoy the way Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij talk about their work. They are certainly much more thoughtful in discussing the way ideas and aesthetics spread...
January 2010
I'm very glad Nitsuh Abebe wrote this, because... →
I agree with Nitsuh completely here, right on down to the “I normally think Jessica Hopper is a smart and talented writer” sentiment.
Spoon “Paper Tiger” Live in Austin,...
“So far my favorite section is where Biskind imbues Beatty with a sexual Spidey...”
– Big Man Tabasco Sauce » Blog Archive » Wizard of Penetration
Brian Palmer definitely has me wanting to read this Warren Beatty biography. It sounds fascinating, sad, creepy, and hilarious. Also, “wizard of penetration” is one of the best phrases I’ve read in a while.
of Montreal “Teenage Unicorn Fisting”...
What did John Bonham do during the first half of... →
Sean T. Collins has the answers. My favorite is: “Shift his molecular vibration over to an alternate universe where the band was already up to the drum part of “Stairway,” perform it there, and then come back just in time.”
“What do you think?” he says, “Do you think it’s going to take...”
– John Mayer on his search for his ideal woman in the cover story of the new issue of Rolling Stone. This interview is astonishingly sophomoric. Another gem: “I am the new generation of masturbator,” Mayer says later on, out of the blue, apropos of nothing, really. “I’ve seen...
Tricky "Master Your Language"
DOWNLOAD IT!
Tricky’s first two albums in collaboration with singer Martina Topley-Bird, Maxinquaye and Pre-Millenium Tension, are acclaimed masterworks, but in the years since his mid-90s heyday, he has severely damaged his legacy by churning out a series of uneven, uninspired, or outright awful releases. He’s become self-defeating and solipsistic, but even today he’s still...
“After the major-label deal fell through, Eno focused on his day job, which...”
– The article about Spoon by Brian Hiatt in the new issue of Rolling Stone is very good, and touches on some bits of their history I knew little about. Just the other day when I saw Britt perform at Sound Fix in Brooklyn, he mentioned that he had lived in an older version of the same building for...
?uestlove of the Roots explains how "walk-on"... →
This is a fascinating and fun post. I’m not shocked that Justin Timberlake is among the most expensive contemporary artists to license, but I am surprised that NBC and/or Broadway Video doesn’t entirely own the rights to “Dick In A Box.”
Here's the tracklisting for Pavement's best-of... →
For the most part, pretty right-on, but I’m baffled as to why “Rattled By The Rush,” “Father To A Sister Of Thought” and “The Hexx” didn’t make the cut, but “Embassy Row” and “Heaven Is A Truck” did.
“In an environment where access to music was through specialist gatekeepers –...”
– Tom Ewing’s review of Europe’s “The Final Countdown” does not mention Arrested Development, but does offer some interesting thoughts on genre.
“It has also been rumoured that Autechre have used military equipment in their...”
– The Wikipedia page for Autechre is fascinating and unintentionally hilarious. It should also be noted that the wiki page for The Designers Republic reads like a joke out of Nathan Barley. (More on Autechre.)
The @1000TimesYes 2009 Tweet Box →
Do you enjoy Christopher Weingarten’s 1000TimesYes project, but wish that you could…y’know…hold those precious tweets in your hands? Put them on your wall? Keep them in a box under your bed? Well, good news: Now you have a range of options for acquiring physical versions of these tweets and/or an autographed copies of Weingarten’s 33 1/3 book about Public Enemy,...
“Well, Pete Seeger went to Harvard. You could say that folk music is the middle...”
– Stephin Merritt, answering the question “Do you not feel that folk could also be defined by class in many ways?”, in an interview on the Drowned In Sound site. It’s always horrible when cynicism and truth intersect in the Venn diagram of life.
“I have never been more grateful for an official, band-sanctioned online lyric...”
– Phoenix’s ‘1901’ > 2009
Rob Harvilla wrote a really nice essay about Phoenix’s total inscrutability, and how that somehow makes their songs ever better. By the way, this was one of a small handful of occasions where I’m reading something on public transportation...
“There are people who read Pitchfork, and Vampire Weekend is the most mainstream...”
– Kris Chen of XL, Vampire Weekend’s label, talking to GQ about the band’s remarkable success.
I think this is a very succinct and accurate way of defining Vampire Weekend’s cultural niche. That niche has been occupied by some other bands; this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon....
“Widespread groupthink and the straw man of “indie elitism” have eviscerated the...”
– From Matt LeMay’s excellent essay A Totally Sincere and Heartfelt Look Back at 2009 on the MBV group site. It gets even better when he starts talking about how critics (a term used rather broadly) discuss art by “naive” young musicians.
The Unofficial, Unpublished Introduction To An... →
Liz’s parody of Elizabeth Gilbert is brilliant and hilarious. It’s definitely worth reading even if you’ve never read any of Gilbert’s work.
'Just Kids': Punk Icon Patti Smith Looks Back →
Terry Gross’ interview with Patti Smith is excellent, especially the stuff early on where she’s just talking about the beginning of her friendship with the late Robert Mapplethorpe. The story about Mapplethorpe rescuing her from a bad date with a creepy science fiction writer is golden.
The Year of Too Much Consensus →
This is an extraordinarily depressing essay by former Voice editor/professional contrarian Chuck Eddy. It’s like a guy who used to be principal of a high school getting really angry about the outcome of his old school’s student council election.
Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne pictured in the bath on... →
Well, you probably want to click though and see it, right? Good work, NME.
White Hinterland “Icarus” My review of...
“The band’s last record, 2007’s “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga,” was a breakup album — Daniel...”
– Spoon dips into fame - NYPOST.com
This makes 100% perfect sense to me. Transference sounds like someone searching, throwing themselves around and really wanting something, but not quite finding it. Always looking around the corner, wondering what could be next, but secretly longing for security and...
Flirting With Guys →
A very short story by Edith Zimmerman. Story is kinda maybe the wrong word. It’s a very well-told joke!
