FOLK IMPLOSION

Album name of the day, courtesy of the early 70s British folk scene and a group called COB:

"Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart"

Fuck yeah.

Betcha by golly wow and just fuck yeah...

BEEP BEEP 'M BEEP BEEP YEAH

I was designated driver for an office field trip yesterday. So yeah, I made a mix.

"Car and Driver"

Come On Get Happy-- The Partridge Family
Drive-- R.E.M.
Airbag-- Radiohead
Crawling From The Wreckage-- Dave Edmunds
Shut Down-- The Beach Boys
I Get Around-- The Beach Boys
Little Honda-- Yo La Tengo
Emperor Tomato Ketchup-- Stereolab
Cars-- To Rococo Rot
Cars-- Gary Numan
Car Song-- Elastica
Killer Cars-- Radiohead
Fast Cars-- The Buzzcocks
I Love My Car-- Belle & Sebastian
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road-- Lucinda Williams
Keep the Car Running-- Arcade Fire
Car Wash-- Rose Royce
Back Of A Car-- Big Star
Motor Away-- Guided By Voices
Gravity Rides Everything-- Modest Mouse
Keep On (Groovin')-- The Brady Bunch

The Stereolab/To Rococo Rot/Gary Numan part was my favorite stretch. Krautastic!

YOUR SCENT IS STILL HERE

In one of those only-on-cable moments, I found myself watching Nirvana play the 1992 Reading festival a few days back.

When I first heard Kurt had killed himself, I hurled my remote control. It helicoptored across the living room and smashed into the far wall, breaking the battery cover.

His suicide was inevitable and stupid and a waste. And I was as unsurprised as I was pissed.

So I clutched my remote tightly for the whole of the Reading show, and I never let it go...

RUN TO THE SEA

In one of those only-on-the-internets moments, I found myself reading about The Joshua Tree a few days back.

Fun fact: turns out that the sequence of the album was determined by Kirsty MacColl, then wife of Steve Lillywhite, and soon-to-be duet partner with Shane MacGowan on Fairytale of New York. (Bonus Pogues connection: her dad Ewan was a noted folk singer, and wrote Dirty Old Town, which the Pogues covered on their second album.)

The final running order is essentially her ranking of the songs, from favorite to least. I think she got it right, mostly-- I'd probably just flip Bullet the Blue Sky and One Tree Hill and be satisfied enough...

BOO!

WHEN I PAINT MY MASTERPIECE

My favorite vision of the moment is the skeleton of midrise construction strung internally with white incandescent lights, at dusk.

This replaces my previous favorite: the first 45 seconds of condensation on a shower door illumined by a globe of vanity light, viewed from a sitting position.

If I had any talent in the visual arts, I would paint these things to be as beautiful as they are in my head...

WRAPPED UP IN BOOKS

At a conference this week...

Today, someone referred in passing to the Federation of Kentucky Academic Libraries.

Or FKAL, as I like to call it.

Or FUCKALL, as I like to call it better still.

It's all about loving what you do, people...

PANDA LAB

I've decided to pretend that the new Atlas Sound album is a single:

Walkabout (w/ Noah Lennox) b/w Quiet Canal (w/ Laetitia Sadier)

So, have you heard the new Atlas Sound single? It's groovy!

I WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT MY TV FOR A DAY

You know, the ability to access my iTunes through the TV seemed initially like feature fluff.

But then I realized that with the convergence and the whatnot and the hoohah, the best speaker system in my house probably belongs to the TV at this point.

Well played, FiOS TV. Well played.

LOVE OF GENIUS

I designed to take a short nap the other day. Unusual behavior, but I've been fighting something, and I had a slot available.

I told iTunes to make a Genius list based on Valerie by Broadcast.

As I really began to nod off, it played Choci Loni by Young Marble Giants and Chris Michaels by The Fiery Furnaces. In my borderline state of consciousness, I would have sworn that these two songs together lasted about 4 hours. And I mean that in a good way.

Apparently, I was out totally for Keep It Clean (Camera Obscura), The Crying of Lot G (Yo La Tengo), and Some Things Last a Long Time (Beach House). Wire's Strange stirred me back awake.

It was short, yeah, but it was the best damn nap I've had in ages...

PICNICKING IN THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE

Sometimes when great bands



splinter, the pieces do things both wondrous



and mundane



And more often than not it becomes clear that the lead singer is a tosser...

SONGS ABOUT CHOCOLATE AND GIRLS

Sometimes when great bands



splinter, the pieces do things both wondrous



and mundane



And more often than not it becomes clear that the lead singer is a tosser...

WOLF LIKE ME

And yeah, Chronic Town came out in 1982 as well.

But I didn't get bit by the R.E.M. bug until Murmur a year later.

Murmur meant so much to me.

Most of my other teenage musical obsessions to that point felt borrowed, secondhand. The Clash, The Jam, The Beat were all going concerns when I became a fan, but they were in varying states of decay.

But then with Murmur (and things like Wild Gift and The Days of Wine and Roses) I felt like I had found something inchoate, something that was gaining its shape right before my very ears. Something that belonged to me...

WOLVES, LOWER

Another dispatch from the I-am-a-dumbass files, 1982 edition.

Back at the dawn of MTV, I caught the Hungry Like the Wolf video on the TV in Kenny's basement. Didn't have cable myself...

I was pretty excited. See, I had just recently discovered the New York Dolls, and I confused Duran Duran with the Dolls' guitarist Sylvain Sylvain. I think it took me a couple of weeks to figure out this all had nothing to do with the Dolls.

Anyhow, everybody knows that Duran Duran actually assassinated Bobby Kennedy. Or something.

On another lupine front, I was rightly excited to see my X and The Hungry Wolf on MTV that same year...

THE INVOICE IT DON'T QUITE FIT

The first thing I heard when I left the office today was the somewhat desultory demo version of Janie Jones that opens the Clash on Broadway box.

Best damn thing I heard all week...

LIKE SPINNING PLATES

Sometimes I think that old Virginny is trying to speak to me through its license plates.

But all too often, I have no idea what the fuck it's trying to say.

Take today for example. Within the span of about 90 seconds, I saw the following two plates:

2OSAS

2URSUS

So what's the message, Virginia?

“sliced tongue, watch out for them bears”?

WTF VA.

AND SHE'S GONE

Lucy in the sky died...

AND IN THE END

The people have gesprochen.

Here are the top 5 Beatles remasters in terms of first-week sales:

1. Abbey Road, 89K
2. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 74K
3. The Beatles (white album), 60K
4. Rubber Soul, 58K
5. Revolver, 46K

Not a bad week for a band that broke up 4o years ago. Well done, hype masters! Well done, remasters!

A THOUSAND PAGES GIVE OR TAKE A FEW (HUNDRED)

Much ink has been shed and many pixels have been sacrificed in the service of chronicling every damn thing The Beatles ever did.

One of the more compelling books you're going to find is Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald's detailed analysis of each song the band recorded. It is sometimes bafflingly music-geeky (“cyclic arpeggios” and “plain E Dorian melodies” anyone?), decidedly pro-Macca/anti-Lennon, and reactionary to a fault (stating as fact the “catastrophic decline of pop” after 1966).

That being said, it is also passionate, insightful, and incredibly detailed. It is the type of book that perhaps only The Beatles deserve...

GOOD NIGHT SLEEP TIGHT

Random thoughts on the remasters I bought:

-Tell Me Why is every inch as good as Heatwave, which it apes, and White Riot, which it begat.

-Next time you care to make fun of Ringo, listen to Ticket to Ride. I don't know shit about drumming, but that right there is brilliant drumming.

-I wish she was leaving home in pursuit of something more profound than “fun.” But I suppose the lack of profundity is what seals our sympathy for the middle-class mum and dad, which is a pretty extraordinary slant for 1967.

-”I used to be cruel to my woman/I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved”? Not cool, The Beatles. Not cool.

-On the other hand... I was taking my mom out shopping last Sunday. She's recovering from a mild stroke and battling arthritic knees, so it takes her 4 or 5 arduous minutes to get in the car. As she worked to pull herself across the back seat, she heard Getting Better playing on the radio. “I like your music,” she said, her face brightening. And here I let Paul carry the moment, and left John out of it...

-The guitar solo in I Should Have Known Better is just the damn dinkiest thing. Sounds like someone breaks a string at the end of it.

-Yesterday endures because it is 2:06.

-Glass Onion's obnoxious solipsism is one thing, but how about Savoy Truffle: “We all know ob-la-di-bla-da...” Um, yeah, we all know it, George... from aaaalllll the way back on fucking side 1. Sheesh.