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.

CHASING PAPER

The fourth Beatles remaster I bought? Why, it's all there in that previous post.

Here's a hint: white text on a white background.

Now, go plant some acorns for peace, ya knuckleheads...

YOU ASK ME FOR A CONTRIBUTION

The last of the four Beatles remasters that I bought was the white album. That sprawling, bawling, yawing, hawing, mess of an album.

The thing is so schizophrenic that an actual schizophrenic heard in it messages to foment violent revolution.

Never mind that one of those songs was a slight but noisy ode to a fairground ride (Helter Skelter). Mind that one was a fairly vitriolic attack on middle-class values (Piggies).

And I have to say, whereas Helter Skelter always felt kind of cleansing to me, Piggies still just sounds nasty and condescending. I mean, that line about “clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon” (cannibalism, you see) is positively Swiftian—well, if Swift had been a moralizing, humorless prig, that is.

To indulge in some parlour games, here’s my version of the great single-album tracklist:

Side A
1. Back in the USSR
2. Dear Prudence
3. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
4. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
5. Happiness is a Warm Gun
6. I’m So Tired

Side B
1. Birthday
2. Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey
3. Sexy Sadie
4. Julia
5. Helter Skelter
6. Revolution 1

FUN IS THE ONE THING THAT MONEY CAN'T BUY

Next up on the remaster parade is Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The album is at heart a confection.

Its weight, in the context of late 60's Romantic notions, is its weightlessness.

Right up until A Day in the Life, that is.

Don't get me wrong-- A Day in the Life earns all its due respect as a watershed moment in pop. But, really it just seems out of place here. Sgt Pepper proper would be a much tidier affair if it ended with the reprise.

And as a bonus, then we could all acknowledge She's Leaving Home as the best single song on the album without feeling guilty...

HEAD IN HAND

The next Beatles remaster I picked up was Help!

The drill here is essentially the same as with A Hard Day's Night: seven brilliant soundtrack songs, followed by, um, others (quick-- whistle You Like Me Too Much or Tell Me What You See). The line of demarcation is drawn in boldface when Ticket to Ride gives way to Act Naturally.

But in this case, “other” also includes I've Just Seen a Face and Yesterday. (Thanks, Paul.) Plus, the brilliant songs are “better” than the one's on A Hard Day's Night because they're more “mature.”

So, while A Hard Day's Night is the winner in the movie category, Help! has got it on songs...